Author Topic: Electric cars  (Read 696336 times)

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #450 on: November 09, 2017, 09:38:21 AM »
Now here is a statistic .....

One hundred million. That’s the number of miles, on average, that it takes a human driver to kill someone in the United States. It’s also the number of miles Tesla’s semi-autonomous ‘Autopilot’ feature had racked up by May this year.

One fatal accident every 100,000,000 miles...  lets see if Autonomous vehicles can match that,  because if they can't their whole Raison D'etre is null and void. 
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

Jocko

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 9356
  • Country: scotland
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: Died from rust.
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #451 on: November 09, 2017, 03:25:49 PM »
Watched an interesting thing, courtesy of a link from "Fully Charged". It was an Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee meeting, and the questioning regarding insurance was most enlightening.
The insurers are most enthusiastic, and don't see a problem with autonomous vehicles. They reckon they will be far safer, lead to considerably cheaper premiums (even a reduction in premiums for conventional vehicles), and will lead to better proportioning of blame in a accidents. Here is the link (there is a portion near the beginning where the meeting is private so it actually starts about 9:34 on the clock)
Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee meeting

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #452 on: November 09, 2017, 04:47:30 PM »
Is this the same parliamentary committee that told everyone to buy diesel because of their ultra clean exhausts that were going to stop climate change ? Politicians are pretty much lawyers and accountants and know Jack-sh!t about anything, they are easily manipulated by lobbyists and hype.
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

Jocko

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 9356
  • Country: scotland
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: Died from rust.
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #453 on: November 09, 2017, 04:52:55 PM »
It was the Insurance and Road Research Laboratory experts that were the ones of interest. The politicians were just asking the questions. The same questions I would have wanted to ask them.

peteo48

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2689
  • Country: gb
  • I have entered the Jazz Age
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2021 Honda Jazz Mk4 1.5 i-MMD EX
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #454 on: November 10, 2017, 10:28:04 AM »
Is this the same parliamentary committee that told everyone to buy diesel because of their ultra clean exhausts that were going to stop climate change ? Politicians are pretty much lawyers and accountants and know Jack-sh!t about anything, they are easily manipulated by lobbyists and hype.

Interesting you should bring this up. Had a meal last night with my cousin and her husband. He is a retired mechanical engineer who spent all his working life in and around the motor industry. He said that the dirty truth about diesel was known when the decision to encourage take up was made. A classic example of box ticking politics by the government of the day.

He was interesting on the subject of autonomous cars. He is firmly of the opinion that the idea that we will all be using autonomous cars anytime soon and in great numbers is strictly for the birds. Widespread uptake is many many years away. The big motor companies are getting involved but his sources indicate that planning for new conventional petrol and diesel cars are still in progress and new conventional models will be coming on to the market for years to come.

I wonder if, like the paperless office and nuclear energy so cheap it wouldn't be worth billing people for, these ideas of flying autonomous cars will be seen to be another prediction that is some way wide of the mark. There will be autonomous vehicles but possibly in limited applications.

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #455 on: November 10, 2017, 11:02:57 AM »
Is this the same parliamentary committee that told everyone to buy diesel because of their ultra clean exhausts that were going to stop climate change ? Politicians are pretty much lawyers and accountants and know Jack-sh!t about anything, they are easily manipulated by lobbyists and hype.

Interesting you should bring this up. Had a meal last night with my cousin and her husband. He is a retired mechanical engineer who spent all his working life in and around the motor industry. He said that the dirty truth about diesel was known when the decision to encourage take up was made. A classic example of box ticking politics by the government of the day.

He was interesting on the subject of autonomous cars. He is firmly of the opinion that the idea that we will all be using autonomous cars anytime soon and in great numbers is strictly for the birds. Widespread uptake is many many years away. The big motor companies are getting involved but his sources indicate that planning for new conventional petrol and diesel cars are still in progress and new conventional models will be coming on to the market for years to come.

I wonder if, like the paperless office and nuclear energy so cheap it wouldn't be worth billing people for, these ideas of flying autonomous cars will be seen to be another prediction that is some way wide of the mark. There will be autonomous vehicles but possibly in limited applications.

Apparently the 'visual' (spacial) maps needed for Waymo / Google autonomous vehicles to function (they are like Google streetview) have to be massively detailed which results in massive files and at the moment limits their use to small areas (and presumably slows down processing times).  Don't know what will happen when on larger roads with no real closely spaced visual clues, or if someone builds a new building or a new roundabout appears or a road gets re-routed (we all now what can happen on normal satnav). Seems that the streetview files will need constant updating.

My brother in law comment when he had his first satnav many years ago is very telling, he said 'I get to places but haven't a clue where the place is or how I got there' - didn't know if he had driven North, South, East or West !  Big tech doesn't care about the public, and whether autonomous cars are a solution looking for the problem or not,  all they care about is their bottom line......  They don't give a sh!t about how dumb our lives get as long as the dollars keep rolling in.  If Darwin was right about evolution,  right now our brains are shrinking and pretty soon our legs will wither (but our bodies will keep getting fatter).

Alexa order my autonomous car for 7-30......... and then cook my breakfast and make coffee, Oh iron my shirt and turn the TV on as well..............
« Last Edit: November 10, 2017, 11:05:37 AM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

peteo48

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2689
  • Country: gb
  • I have entered the Jazz Age
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: 2021 Honda Jazz Mk4 1.5 i-MMD EX
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #456 on: November 10, 2017, 12:26:09 PM »
I think the deskilling of humanity is a serious issue. It might be widening the debate beyond electric cars but a recent report in Prospect magazine indicated that the widely held view that excessive eating was the sole factor behind the obesity epidemic was way wide of the mark. Actual average calorific consumption had actually declined but inactivity had massively increased. Women do 7 hours a week less housework than they used to do, time spent commuting had increased, all sorts of other jobs had been outsourced - washing your own car marks you out as an eccentric where I live. A minority might be out jogging but the broad mass of the population rarely gets up off its collective bottom preferring machines and screens to take over their lives.

"Progress" isn't always for the best.

Maybe the Luddites had a point.

madasafish

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1953
  • Country: gb
  • My Honda: 1.4 ES CVT -2012
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #457 on: November 10, 2017, 12:48:59 PM »
I think the deskilling of humanity is a serious issue. It might be widening the debate beyond electric cars but a recent report in Prospect magazine indicated that the widely held view that excessive eating was the sole factor behind the obesity epidemic was way wide of the mark. Actual average calorific consumption had actually declined but inactivity had massively increased. Women do 7 hours a week less housework than they used to do, time spent commuting had increased, all sorts of other jobs had been outsourced - washing your own car marks you out as an eccentric where I live. A minority might be out jogging but the broad mass of the population rarely gets up off its collective bottom preferring machines and screens to take over their lives.

"Progress" isn't always for the best.

Maybe the Luddites had a point.

Obviously not seen the trolleys in Asda full of fizzy drinks and bread and pies..

"Britons are increasingly under-reporting their daily calorie consumption according to a new study, which could hamper the efforts of health experts to cut rising obesity levels."

"Participants in the study consumed closer to 3,000 calories on average, compared to the 2,000 often reported by adults in official statistics."


https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/08/britons-under-reporting-calorie-intake-tell-us-how-much-you-really-eat
« Last Edit: November 10, 2017, 12:51:45 PM by madasafish »

culzean

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 8017
  • Country: england
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #458 on: November 10, 2017, 02:25:10 PM »
http://www.thedrive.com/opinion/7324/the-way-we-talk-about-autonomy-is-a-lie-and-thats-dangerous

Interesting article, comment below this article also mentions google self-driving test cars have a massive computer server in the boot to handle the massive amounts of data their system requires,  and that is just for very restricted area use, and data will need continual updating.

Another point is does each LIDAR have its own unique frequency to prevent other vehicles picking up stray or reflected or direct pulses from other cars ? Same with vehicle to vehicle radio comms, how does that work with vehicles closely packed together, and the bandwidth required.  A telling thing in article is that no progress has been made even in USA on this, no infrastructure exists.

Extract from comment on article.......

Good article,  but it ignores one thing about the current "autonomous" cars operated by Google et al: These cars essentially have a server farm in their trunk that stores a 3D map of the entire city they are operating in.  Any changes to the city's roads require re-scanning and update of this 3D map.  This is completely impractical for widespread use.  In order for an autonomous car to be feasible for widespread use, it must be able to operate on much less pre-populated data.
« Last Edit: November 10, 2017, 03:31:31 PM by culzean »
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

richardfrost

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1408
  • Country: england
  • My Honda: Black 2005 1.4 SE RIP
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #459 on: November 10, 2017, 02:54:50 PM »
Women do 7 hours a week less housework than they used to do

Shocking! How much more housework do me do?

madasafish

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1953
  • Country: gb
  • My Honda: 1.4 ES CVT -2012
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #460 on: November 10, 2017, 03:45:32 PM »
I do 168 hours housework every week..

guest1372

  • Topic Starter
  • Guest
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #461 on: November 10, 2017, 03:52:07 PM »
Any changes to the city's roads require re-scanning and update of this 3D map.  This is completely impractical for widespread use.
Presumably this is accomplished exactly the same way existing 2D sat nav paths are updated and refined by sampling the collective data fed back by the users, of course it helps the first one down any route to have seeded data just as the test vehicles are collecting, processing and re-using.  The strengths of autonomy is that knowledge will be shared - as soon as a couple of vehicles have gone by the skip on the road, every other car will be expecting it; the pedestrian hidden by the bus will be made known to vehicles behind by the first one to pass them.
--
TG

Jocko

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 9356
  • Country: scotland
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: Died from rust.
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #462 on: November 10, 2017, 04:05:15 PM »
I don't know about LIDAR but sophisticated RADAR uses a system whereby the pulse time and duration is random generated and the receiver knows what signal it is looking for. RADAR also uses narrow band discrete frequencies, but interference can occur, especially in busy coastal waters like the Channel and Solent. Something will have to be engineered to allow mass use of LIDAR.
The size of the computers used at present is down to them being four wheel laboratories and the eventual production vehicles will have much smaller systems installed. The size of chips is falling at a tremendous rate and every year you can squeeze more onto a chip than you did last year. That also dramatically reduces the energy requirements of the computer.

madasafish

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1953
  • Country: gb
  • My Honda: 1.4 ES CVT -2012
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #463 on: November 10, 2017, 08:04:42 PM »
Any changes to the city's roads require re-scanning and update of this 3D map.  This is completely impractical for widespread use.
Presumably this is accomplished exactly the same way existing 2D sat nav paths are updated and refined by sampling the collective data fed back by the users, of course it helps the first one down any route to have seeded data just as the test vehicles are collecting, processing and re-using.  The strengths of autonomy is that knowledge will be shared - as soon as a couple of vehicles have gone by the skip on the road, every other car will be expecting it; the pedestrian hidden by the bus will be made known to vehicles behind by the first one to pass them.
--


TG

So stupendous quantities of data will be fed in real time to a central processing point and redistrubuted to autonamous vehicles in real time. In a country where rural areas have limited signal access and areas like tunnels, between mountains where there is none--- this is all going to be very challengeing . The current mobile network will look like a child's toy.. And when one local feed goes down, - which it will - what happens? All fall down?

You are talking invetsments which make mobile telecomms look like  a child's plaything.

Jocko

  • Approved Member
  • *
  • Posts: 9356
  • Country: scotland
  • Fuel economy:
  • My Honda: Died from rust.
Re: Electric cars
« Reply #464 on: November 10, 2017, 08:30:54 PM »
From everything I have read, cars will communicate with each other via WiFi. The only time they will communicate with a central hub will be for downloading data and uploading updates.

Tags:
 

Back to top