Author Topic: Electric cars  (Read 694310 times)

richardfrost

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #45 on: July 27, 2017, 02:46:26 PM »
Agree on HS2 and nuclear. I think we need a supply of energy that can meet what I think they call baseload. I also wonder what has happened to nuclear fusion?

I have my Mr Fusion on order. Where I'm going, I don't need roads...

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #46 on: July 27, 2017, 02:52:14 PM »
"Self driving cars", Level 3, will never be a success as they still require an alert human to supervise them. However, "Driverless cars", Level 4 and 5 will work and could take to the road today if the powers that be wished it. Even at their current level they are safer than a car driven by a human driver.

I disagree,  us humans can make decisions in situations that would leave a 'driverless car' floundering or dangerous,  even indistinct lane markings or lines in the road that are not supposed to be there can cause autonomous car to do stupid and dangerous things, all a human would do is curse the 'bloody local council' and carry on.   I was involved in automation of machines, factories and warehouses for more years than i like to think about and I know how difficult it is to get closed, well routed systems working properly 100% of the time, I can well imagine how difficult it can be to get totally random systems like the traffic on our roads anywhere near the level it needs to be to 'be safer than human driver'.    There is so much hype around EV and autonomous vehicles at the moment I do not believe a fraction of it.  No company wants to be left behind and they are claiming stuff that is not currently workable.  I have seen programs and videos of autonomous vehicles,  even on test tracks doing stupid things like suddenly crossing onto other side of track or crashing into barriers for no explicable reason.  Self driving cars are like something from 'tomorrows world TV program' at the moment - and how many of those things came into mainstream use.

I worry about sensors getting coated with squashed insects, dust, mud or snow and ice, this would cripple the cars systems and the only safe thing it could do is come to a halt exactly where it is,  maybe in the centre lane of a motorway or on an off-ramp.  AI works well in certain set-piece situations,  but it needs an enormous amount of time and work to even come close to a human brains ability to reason and make decisions in real time about random events.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2017, 03:12:06 PM by culzean »
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richardfrost

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #47 on: July 27, 2017, 03:01:14 PM »
I am working in AI now and I could not agree more with Culzean. What AI is starting to do now is learn from humans by observing what we do in every situation. The problem is, with the variability of driving these days, the amount of observation and trial by error tp be done will take many years. The only way it could work, even given today's latest t technology, would be for us all to have it fitted and switched off, but in observation mode, recording real world scenarios and human decisions, for many years, before enough data exists for the AI to take over.

Only if every single car had AI driving fitted and they all followed absolutely identical rules and behaviours (none of this Volvo AI vs BMW AI nonsense), and they all communicated in real time with each other about where they are, what speed, direction, acceleration, vehicle condition, weather, what they have seen, all of that - then everything would be wonderful and safe, and so incredibly dull.

But imagine a Volvo AI car approaching an BMW AI car and then something unexpected happens. How can one type of AI anticipate the other types behaviour? Or if a collision is inevitable? Does the car carrying a pair of pensioners head for a tree to save the lives or a car carrying a young family?

Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #48 on: July 27, 2017, 03:14:14 PM »
Does the car carrying a pair of pensioners head for a tree to save the lives or a car carrying a young family?
I think it is the Google autonomous car that is currently programmed to protect the occupants, so to avoid injury to it's one of two passengers it will happily mow down a group of children!

guest1372

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #49 on: July 27, 2017, 03:30:33 PM »
....and they all communicated in real time with each other about where they are, what speed, direction, acceleration, vehicle condition, weather, what they have seen, all of that - then everything would be wonderful and safe, and so incredibly dull.  ....How can one type of AI anticipate the other types behaviour?
The V2X (vehicle to everything) protocol has recently been ratified, although much work will still to be need to be done on the vocabulary.  This will let everything interested in a ~500m area listen for broadcasts, i.e. the hard breaking car hidden by the van in front will alert followers.  Maybe this will mean green traffic lights more often, or not? "Turn green, I'm a VIP approaching"

http://www.st.com/en/applications/automotive-and-transportation/vehicle-to-everything-v2x.html

"Not every car is going to turn into an autonomous vehicle overnight. As more V2X-enabled cars hit the streets and the V2X network becomes stronger, more information can be shared between autonomous and legacy cars. V2X users benefit from the network effect principle: V2X is designed to be a collaborative technology that gets stronger with each node that’s added to the network"
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madasafish

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #50 on: July 27, 2017, 06:18:06 PM »
Self driving cars will of course require dealer only servicing. Period.
At regular intervals. Period.

Any bodging could and probably  will result in multiple fatalities..

Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #51 on: July 27, 2017, 06:42:02 PM »
I tend to thing that once autonomous vehicles become common place, you will just hire one as you need it. You will call it up, it will take you where you want to go and drop you there. (I am currently reading "Driverless Car Revolution: Buy Mobility, Not Metal" by Rutt Bridges.)

guest1372

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #52 on: July 27, 2017, 06:46:17 PM »
Self driving cars will of course require dealer only servicing. Period.
....but you won't need to own one if you live in a town, it will just turn up at your door.  One of the theories floating around is that parking will disappear and cars will just drive away to somewhere else and recharge.  Driverless operation is really best if no one is in the car, it can prioritise the safety of those around it instead; I would have loved it earlier today if I could have got out at the ritzy shop I needed to visit (with no parking) and told the car to come back in 10 minutes.

When Oslo found it could not ban vehicles from it's centre, it did the next best thing; the plan is to remove parking instead.
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culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #53 on: July 31, 2017, 06:47:49 PM »
If anyone is expecting wind turbines to supply electrical energy for vehicles these two articles are a reality check,  all the wind turbines achieve at the moment is to give the people who run electricity grids, (who need to provide power where and when it is needed) a headache,  because of extreme variation in wind and the effect this has on generation some countries just use wind turbines to supply power for pumped storage schemes,  where the lakes can be topped up as and when turbines decide they may generate a bit of power.  Imagine if we had to go back to wind power to move commercial ships around,  it is just too damned unreliable. 

Average output of a wind turbine annually is a small fraction of its full capacity,  which can only be utilised in winds above 30mph and below 50mph, the 'goldilocks zone' LOL

And governments continue to subsidise wind farms,  even though we have many years of experience to show they are a complete waste of time.

https://www.wind-watch.org/faq-output.php

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/wind-turbines-are-neither-clean-nor-green-and-they-provide-zero-global-energy/
« Last Edit: July 31, 2017, 08:07:14 PM by culzean »
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Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #54 on: July 31, 2017, 07:04:36 PM »
They reckon that battery storage is the future. Battery technology is supposedly moving forward in leaps and bounds. The technology I have linked to is supposedly coming to fruition. It may not come to pass in my lifetime, but it is not that far away.
And even as late as last year Lockheed Martin were still investing heavily in their "compact fusion reactor". When these businesses throw enough money at projects, things start to happen.

http://media.ntu.edu.sg/NewsReleases/Pages/newsdetail.aspx?news=809fbb2f-95f0-4995-b5c0-10ae4c50c934

culzean

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #55 on: July 31, 2017, 08:51:14 PM »
The main challenge is that, in order to achieve continuous controlled nuclear fusion, we have to actually recreate conditions inside the Sun. That means building a machine that's capable of producing and controlling a 100-million-degree-Celsius (180 million degree Fahrenheit) ball of plasma gas - and then somehow extract the heat from the plasma.
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

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #56 on: July 31, 2017, 09:05:18 PM »
A 2012 paper demonstrated that a dense plasma focus had achieved temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees Celsius, sufficient for boron fusion, and that fusion reactions were occurring primarily within the contained plasmoid, a necessary condition for net power.
In October 2014, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works announced the development of a high-beta fusion reactor that they hope to yield a functioning 100-megawatt prototype by 2017 and to be ready for regular operation by 2022.
In October 2015, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics completed building the largest stellarator to date, named Wendelstein 7-X. On December 10, they successfully produced the first helium plasma, and on February 3, 2016 produced the device's first hydrogen plasma. With plasma discharges lasting up to 30 minutes, Wendelstein 7-X will try to demonstrate the essential stellarator attribute: continuous operation of a high-temperature hydrogen plasma.
So it is not that far off. Maybe not in my lifetime but not long after.

peteo48

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #57 on: July 31, 2017, 10:39:47 PM »
More generally, on electric cars and autonomous cars, I think the boffins are getting ahead of themselves as witnessed by the Horizon programme on BBC4 this evening.

We have 30 million cars on UK roads, mostly ICE and ICE cars are still in production and will be for some time to come. I think I'm right in saying that the UK fleet adds and loses about 2 million vehicles a year so it'll take a long time for the current fleet of vehicles to be replaced even allowing for incentives etc. Added to which polling indicates that 50% of people don't want autonomous cars.

It will come but it's a long way down the track. I'm old enough to remember the paperless office and the claim that nuclear energy would be so cheap it wouldn't be worth sending out bills!

Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #58 on: August 01, 2017, 07:33:53 AM »
I watched that programme last time it was on. Interesting even if tainted by usual BBC bias.
Up until a few weeks ago I was very sceptical about electric cars in general and particularly "Driverless" cars. I then watched a presentation on YouTube which made me stop and think. I then started researching what I had seen (one of the benefits of sitting at home most of the day) and began to see the possibilities. I am currently reading a book by the same guy who gave the original presentation, and it is very enlightening.
One thing to make clear though, there is a huge gulf between electric cars we were initially discussing here and autonomous vehicles. Electric cars are here, now, and will ultimately totally replace ICE powered vehicles. There will still be some ICE vehicles around, just as there are still a few Model T's going about, but eventually they will be in the hands of a few enthusiasts.
Autonomous vehicles are in the future, but with the take over of EV's (Electric Vehicles), or as I have seen them described, EEV's (Emissions Elsewhere Vehicles), autonomous vehicles will become even more of a likelihood.
So much of what we see about so called driverless cars, at the moment, are just driver assisted, which even the boffins and aficionados realise are dangerous. I get bored and inattentive on a quiet motorway using cruise control, never mind having the car steering and maintaining a gap for me too. When a driver has nothing to do but monitor the car, accidents will happen. If two pilots in an airliner, "monitoring", can fly an hour past their destination, what chance has the poor, inattentive driver got. After all, we make a hash of it when we are concentrating!
Here are the links, again, to what has changed my mind about autonomous vehicles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BWJcpesr6A&t=954s

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00WS1S4AM/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o08_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Jocko

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Re: Electric cars
« Reply #59 on: August 01, 2017, 07:43:49 AM »
Rolls Royce are skipping hybrids and going straight to full electric.

http://www.businessinsider.com/rolls-royce-to-skip-hybrids-and-go-straight-to-electric-cars-2017-7?IR=T

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