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Other Hondas & General Topics => Off Topic (Non-Honda) => Topic started by: Jocko on November 17, 2017, 07:43:06 AM

Title: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 17, 2017, 07:43:06 AM
Volvo has unveiled its self driving truck prototype.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/motoring/2017-11/17/content_34638451.htm (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/motoring/2017-11/17/content_34638451.htm)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 19, 2017, 10:37:58 AM
So the government is supposedly going to make an announcement in the budget allowing the testing of driverless vehicles in the UK, with a view to having the first cars on the road by 2021. Should be interesting.
Jeremy Clarkson has got in on the show with reports he was nearly killed twice by driverless cars making major mistakes, and he had to take over. Sounds like he is talking about Tesla on Autopilot. A system we all know is flawed.
Wasn't Clarkson the guy who did a report for Top Gear on the Tesla and said the battery died on him before it reached its indicated range? Then Tesla picked it up and drove it back to their headquarters?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 19, 2017, 03:23:32 PM
Wasn't Clarkson the guy who did a report for Top Gear on the Tesla and said the battery died on him before it reached its indicated range? Then Tesla picked it up and drove it back to their headquarters?

There is 40 to 50% of a BEV battery that is not available for normal use, this is reserved for future use to maintain range as the battery efficiency drops, Clarkson may well have run out of 'normal' battery but the Tesla Techs used their laptop or dongle to access enough 'unavailable' capacity to get the car home.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 19, 2017, 03:28:45 PM
May well have done.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 21, 2017, 06:04:29 AM
Uber has struck a deal to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo.
The agreement envisages that the pick-up service will purchase the vehicles over the course of three years beginning in 2019.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42055841 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42055841)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest7246 on November 21, 2017, 07:08:01 AM
 8) Clarkson is (amongst other things ;) ) a `petrol-head` & was probably bribed by the oil companies to slag off leccy motors.  ::)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 21, 2017, 09:53:43 AM
Uber has struck a deal to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo.
The agreement envisages that the pick-up service will purchase the vehicles over the course of three years beginning in 2019.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42055841 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42055841)

They will also need to get 100,000+ 'safety drivers' from somewhere...............if they want to run cars 24/7
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on November 21, 2017, 10:16:02 AM
I think uber expect that things will have moved on by 2019. Whilst this might sound extremely optimistic, it would not surprise me to see true level 5 cars appearing sooner than you might think.

When it comes to accidents, it is inevitable that autonomous cars are bound to make mistakes, and those mistakes could inevitably lead to fatalities. However, there are bound to be upsides, and I think back to my recent near-death experience... I met a car doing 60mph on the wrong side of the road, just over the brow of a hill, overtaking a lorry on double white lines. Would an autonomous vehicle have made the errors this driver did? I think probably not.

The question is, how many deaths will the public accept? One fatality per 100 million miles? Or will the idea that lives are placed in the hands of a machine be unacceptable?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 21, 2017, 11:01:59 AM
I was reading a write-up about digital 3D mapping and how the autonomous cars kept swerving at a certain point on the road every time,  turned out there was one pixel on the map that was wrong and the vehicle saw it as an obstacle several feet high.  Now that is frightening that one solitary pixel out of the billions required on the map could cause that. Driver error will be replaced by programing / software errors,  this stuff will be much more complicated and resource hungry that MS Windows,  and we all know the problems and continuous patching that needs.

To be good enough for auto cars digital maps have to be enormously detailed,  and would need updating daily or better to account for changes in the area.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 21, 2017, 01:46:08 PM
I was reading a write-up about digital 3D mapping and how the autonomous cars kept swerving at a certain point on the road every time,  turned out there was one pixel on the map that was wrong and the vehicle saw it as an obstacle several feet high.
Would you care to link to that article?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 21, 2017, 02:00:42 PM
I see Brake has called for Anti Speeding systems to be fitted to all new cars.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42051612 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42051612)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 21, 2017, 03:23:33 PM
I was reading a write-up about digital 3D mapping and how the autonomous cars kept swerving at a certain point on the road every time,  turned out there was one pixel on the map that was wrong and the vehicle saw it as an obstacle several feet high.
Would you care to link to that article?

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/07/technology/business/maps-wars-self-driving-cars/index.html
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 21, 2017, 03:46:54 PM
I see Brake has called for Anti Speeding systems to be fitted to all new cars.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42051612 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42051612)

I am more than happy with their proposal,  people even speed on crowded supermarket carparks,  it makes me angry when people roar down the narrow aisle between parked cars at 40mph. Even on narrow roads on our housing estate (which is a 30 limit but should be 20) with dogs and children around people still sit on my bumper when i drive at 20,  and guess what they are mainly parents who would jump up and down and want a 'speeding' driver given a life sentence if one of their kids was hit by a car.

I would also be happy for a device to be fitted to cars that blocked anything but 999 calls when the vehicle was moving.  People will say 'but what if it is a passenger making the call',  its tough but until drivers can be trusted not to distract themselves from driving with phone calls and texts and continue to kill and maim innocent people well so be it.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 21, 2017, 04:38:37 PM
I see Brake has called for Anti Speeding systems to be fitted to all new cars.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42051612 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42051612)

I am more than happy with their proposal,  people even speed on crowded supermarket carparks,  it makes me angry when people roar down the narrow aisle between parked cars at 40mph. Even on narrow roads on our housing estate (which is a 30 limit but should be 20) with dogs and children around people still sit on my bumper when i drive at 20,  and guess what they are mainly parents who would jump up and down and want a 'speeding' driver given a life sentence if one of their kids was hit by a car.

I would also be happy for a device to be fitted to cars that blocked anything but 999 calls when the vehicle was moving.  People will say 'but what if it is a passenger making the call',  its tough but until drivers can be trusted not to distract themselves from driving with phone calls and texts and continue to kill and maim innocent people well so be it.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. We have huge areas around here with 20 mph speed limits (the centre of Edinburgh is all 20 now, and being extended month on month). My nephew booked a driver doing 23 in a 20. He stopped him to point out the error of his ways. The guy, a resident of the road, started getting lippy, even when it was explained to him that the residents had petitioned to have a 20 mph limit put in place. As the mouthiness continued my nephew decided to book him and let the court decide. The guy paid his fixed penalty fine!
I would block all phone calls from cars. Unless the ignition is off. They block mobile phones in some hotels.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on November 21, 2017, 05:06:04 PM
In 2016 there were 191 road deaths in Scotland  (10.6% of Total)
http://www.gov.scot/About/Performance/scotPerforms/indicator/roaddeaths
In 2016 there were  1792 road deaths in Total in the  UK..  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/648081/rrcgb2016-01.pdf

In 2016 The UK population was 63,785,900.
The population of Scotland was 5,404,700  (8.47% of Total.)
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates


And teh concluision is: Scots are worse drivers on average.. :-)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 21, 2017, 05:53:08 PM
Motorways are the safest roads in the country. Of the 2173 miles in the UK, Scotland has just under 160 miles. The worst roads for road deaths are single carriageway. Most of Scotland's main trunk routes are single carriageway. The Highlands have the worst winter weather, miles between settlements and no other way to get about except by road. Summer sees these same roads choked with foreign coaches and tourists. I don't think Scotland's drivers are any better or worse than the rest of the UK. It is just that we have such a poor road system. Some roads in Scotland are terrible for accidents, especially involving tourists, and a road closure to deal with it can mean a 150 mile detour.
It is not all shortbread and Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on November 23, 2017, 07:02:11 AM
Singapore has announced it will introduce driverless buses by 2022, albeit in three new neighbourhoods which will have less-crowded roads designed to accommodate the buses. From what I remember of Singapore this will be like "Croydon" instead of "Central London". I think they will need Mad Max to do the programming.
It was 50+ years ago I was working out there, but the traffic was total mayhem, with Raffles Square like the Daytona 500. The only time the cars go slow are when the F1 GP is in town!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on February 25, 2018, 03:38:48 PM
I have been watching a series on National Geographic channel covering air crash investigations and a frightening trend is emerging, once the autopilot disables itself when a sensor fails or other control system incident the modern pilots seem incapable of flying the plane manually - strangely they were not taught to do it in training WTF.    I would call them plane minders rather than pilots - one standout case was Air France flight 447 from Argentina to Paris in an AirBus A330 airliner - they flew through a storm and the pitot heads sensors got coated with ice and the planes computer lost its airspeed inputs so the autopilot disengaged itself.  The two man crew (senior officer was asleep  having a mandatory rest period after about 5 hours of flying into an 11 hour flight).  The one pilot immediately put the plane onto full engine power and into a climb,  which in thin air at 35,000 feet and a full fuel load was not a good idea, the stall alarm sounded and both controls sticks began to shake which is done by control system when stall alarm goes off to warn pilots physically what is happening - the co-pilot tried to push stick forward to gain airspeed and stop the stall but the aircraft was confused by conflicting control inputs,  the crew were not watching altimeter which would have shown them plane was pointing upwards but falling towards the ocean at about 2,500 feet per minute,  by the time the senior captain had been woken up and assessed the situation the plane was only a few thousand feet above ocean and too far gone to recover,  the plane pancaked into the ocean at about 200mph in the middle of Atlantic killing everyone.   I think once humans lose the skills for driving they will be in bad shape if things go wrong with computers, and we will all be at the mercy of technology controlled by a few huge global tech companies.  Hacking of systems will be a daily occurrence , the only saving grace with road vehicles they wont fall out of the sky.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Beaver on February 25, 2018, 06:57:49 PM
With passenger airliners, the perfect crew is a pilot and a dog.

The pilot is there to feed the dog.
The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on March 19, 2018, 06:05:53 PM
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 19, 2018, 06:46:06 PM
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

Apparently there was a tech in the car, watching a Harry Potter video on his laptop......
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 19, 2018, 07:04:10 PM
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

I wonder how many pedestrians were killed today by cars with drivers?  :-X
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 19, 2018, 07:08:06 PM
Uber have suspended test of self driving cars in the US after a pedestrian was killed in an accident in Arizona. The only saving grace is they will have more data than an airliner's black box.

I wonder how many pedestrians were killed today by cars with drivers?  :-X

You mean by one of the 99.9% of human drivers in the world,  the reason it makes the news when a robot car goes wrong is that there are not many of them.  One fatality per 100 million miles for cars driven by humans in USA.

Not even safe if you are on a crossing controlled by a red light  maybe Uber did not want to install a colour camera.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on March 19, 2018, 07:25:07 PM
when a robot car goes wrong
That's an assumption that's not yours to make. I had a pedestrian run into my front wing at 30 mph. 0.1 of a second quicker and he would have been in front of the car and probably dead. There are also reports of people running in front of driverless test cars then starting litigation. Perhaps the pedestrian miscalculated.
Quote
Apparently there was a tech in the car, watching a Harry Potter video on his laptop......
That is just a libellous statement. Unless you can prove otherwise? Google certainly doesn't report that anywhere I can find. Seemingly it was a Tesla driver who crashed while watching Harry Potter on his laptop. Well reported on the internet.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 19, 2018, 07:38:38 PM
I wonder how many pedestrians were killed today by cars with drivers?  :-X

You mean by one of the 99.9% of human drivers in the world,  the reason it makes the news when a robot car goes wrong is that there are not many of them.  One fatality per 100 million miles for cars driven by humans in USA.

Not even safe if you are on a crossing controlled by a red light

maybe Uber did not want to install a colour camera.

I couldn't find a tongue-in-cheek emoji.  ;)

I'm not sure what the total number of miles racked up by autonomous vehicles is so far, but imho it's unreasonable to expect them to never be involved in a fatal accident. As unfortunate it is for the pedestrian, and undoubtedly embarrassing for the designer and operator of the car, it is essential to establish the cause before jumping to any conclusions. If the cause is a vehicle or system defect, this will have to be addressed and proven safe.

It's funny you should mention the red light video, I watched a Transit tipper go straight through a red light as I was negotiating a junction yesterday. Human driver, well he looked almost human.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on March 19, 2018, 09:32:33 PM
I'm not sure what the total number of miles racked up by autonomous vehicles is so far
Waymo had racked up 4 million miles about 6 months ago, and Uber had covered 2 million to December.
My comment about aircraft black box was appropriate. The NTSB, who investigate air crashes of US carriers or US manufactured aircraft, are investigating the crash
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on March 20, 2018, 06:59:23 AM
http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/ (http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on March 20, 2018, 07:44:03 AM
http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/ (http://fortune.com/2018/03/19/uber-self-driving-car-crash/)
At the risk of speculating on a preliminary report without the full facts, that report shows all the hallmarks of “spin” on someone’s part. So the pedestrian came out of the shadows and couldn’t be avoided ? But isn’t the hype about AVs supposed to be all about them being safer than human drivers ? I could believe a human would have had difficulty seeing someone in poor light, but surely the car’s lidar sensors aren’t affected by shadows, and aren’t they supposed to be constantly scanning for hazards ? Notice also it passes lightly over the fact that the car was speeding. If it had been within the speed limit perhaps the outcome would have been different. And what difference does it make if the victim is homeless, this is totally irrelevant to the incident so why mention it ? If the report of the facts is accurate then this still looks like something the car ought to have been able to avoid even if the human couldn’t, it all looks like a sad and shameless attempt to gloss over the shortcomings of the AV by discrediting and blaming the victim.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinS on March 20, 2018, 08:09:13 AM
I agree with Colin's comments.  Whats more, the statement "“The driver said it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them,” Moir said. “His first alert to the collision was the sound of the collision.”" is contradictory.  How did the driver know that the victim walked out if their first alert was the collision itself? 
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on March 20, 2018, 08:42:39 AM
The full facts will come out eventually. In fairness, if you read the report, the driver didn't say "first alert was the collision itself". The driver said "it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them". It was the police chief who said "first alert was the collision itself". Regarding the homeless bit, that is the paper adding its comment. Not having a home doesn't make you invisible. Until the NTSB makes its report, all the rest is speculation.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinS on March 20, 2018, 09:41:17 AM
The full facts will come out eventually. In fairness, if you read the report, the driver didn't say "first alert was the collision itself". The driver said "it was like a flash, the person walked out in front of them". It was the police chief who said "first alert was the collision itself". Regarding the homeless bit, that is the paper adding its comment. Not having a home doesn't make you invisible. Until the NTSB makes its report, all the rest is speculation.
Actually if you read it grammatically, there are commas in the sentence which indicates that on both parts it was the Police Chief reporting what the driver had said.  So it is all hearsay. 
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on March 20, 2018, 10:01:01 AM
Yes, I know it was the police chief giving the interview, so it was all things she said. I just feel we should not be jumping to conclusions until the facts are in the public domain. Statements like "Apparently there was a tech in the car, watching a Harry Potter video on his laptop" are not helpful. There is a huge amount of bias on this forum against autonomous and electric cars. I feel I try to see both sides of the argument.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 20, 2018, 10:03:56 AM
I just feel we should not be jumping to conclusions

Which is what I was saying earlier. At the moment, everything is pure speculation.

Chill out and watch another interesting pro-AV video. Interesting bit about AVs opening up the world of car use to those with disabilities.


Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest5079 on March 20, 2018, 11:55:11 AM
The clip I saw on TV this am showed a bent cycle lying on the pavement. It had the trimmings of a homeless person, i e the inevitable black plastic bags. Everyone speaks of a pedestrian being killed, what was the part of the bicycle?
Sorry about my anecdotes  but I actually witnessed this. Being a village Bobby, I tried to walk my place. I was standing talking to a resident on the junction with a very busy A road. Another resident walked along the opposite side of the road I was standing on and just walked off the pavement into the path of an oncoming car. He had not acknowledged me and did not look at me so I can only surmise he was aware of the main road. Horrified I saw him fly into the air and come to rest in the road, the car  was not speeding. He got up and started to walk away. I went to him and suggested we call an ambulance. NO I am OK and walked off. I then had to deal with a hysterical young Lady driver. She had only recently passed her test. Eventually I got her to accept there was NOTHING she could have done and as policeman witnessed it all, apart from submitting an accident report She was to think nothing more of it. Eventually, She went on her way.  I then had to go to the Mans home and check. His Wife said to me the silly old fool has told me what has happened. I again asked that he went to hospital for checking. Again he refused. So everyday, I used to check, if he had dropped dead a few days later  questions would have been asked. I still cannot believe he escaped unhurt. My main concern? He was in his late 90's. So my point, it is possible for a pedestrian to walk out into the path of car and for the driver to be completely unable to avoid the collision. As to autonomous cars, what can be done to avoid such a situation I know not. I should have thought the 'minder' should have been more alert and available to deal with a crisis. After all us humans will condemn out of hand no matter what the facts are.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 20, 2018, 12:07:57 PM
Yes, I know it was the police chief giving the interview, so it was all things she said. I just feel we should not be jumping to conclusions until the facts are in the public domain. Statements like "Apparently there was a tech in the car, watching a Harry Potter video on his laptop" are not helpful. There is a huge amount of bias on this forum against autonomous and electric cars. I feel I try to see both sides of the argument.

The bias is not so much about AV but all the Hype surrounding them,  claims from silicon valley firms like Google / Waymo and Uber seem to get more upbeat and hyped by the day.  Nissan and Detroit are much more measured in their approach and it would seem more pragmatic.   The sheer folly of expecting a bloke with a laptop to take over in a 'real emergency' that happens fast is obvious,  they are there to stop car driving the wrong way down one way streets, straying into cycle lanes, (including not stopping them jumping red lights) and other 'slow emergencies' (happen on average about once every 1.2 miles in one report I read).  No one wants to admit it at the moment but the roads are going to have to be specially adapted in certain areas where AV will run,  maybe sensors and guide wires in the roads,  another investment to me made.

Autopilots on aircraft which have less of a job to do than an AV control system (only have to control speed, and altitude and bearing,  not much to bump into at 35,000 feet), many accidents have been caused by autopilots disengaging (which they do if severe turbulence, sensor failure or other anomalies detected) and the crew not being ready to do the right thing and crashed a perfectly serviceable aircraft.

The final 1 or 2 % of AV functionality is going to be harder than the preceding 98%, is horrendously complicated and  probably harder than getting a man on the Moon or to Mars but it seems that about every 18 months it is announced that they are 2 years away.  Tesla will be going bust in 2018 so that is one 'silicon valley' company out of the game so a bit less hype to handle..

I have 'saved' more than one person from being run over (by my car) by noticing what was happening on the pavement,  twice I have had young teen girls step into the road while busy with their phones, a ball bouncing into the road followed by a small boy etc.  This is where an attentive human helps, they can 'predict ' things,  I would not have minded braking hard for someone who did not step off the kerb,  rather a false positive than a very messy negative.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: VicW on March 20, 2018, 02:58:30 PM
An AV is still going to need a programmer, someone has got to put in details of where you want the car to go and these details have got to be a lot more accurate than currently available using sat-nav and post codes.
Let's take a typical example. Nearly every Friday morning we go shopping. Let's say I don't know where Tesco is so I put the postcode into my sat-nav. That gets me to Tesco but doesn't get me into a parking space, I, the driver do that.
In my AV I get in and say 'Tesco' or press a pre programmed button loaded with the whereabouts of Tesco. The car starts up, switches on any lights required, backs out of my drive, takes me to Tesco and finds me a parking space which may not be one of my choosing. Coming home I select 'home'.
To do this the sat-nav equivalent is going to be considerably more accurate than post codes and somebody, the 'driver' has got to pre programme destinations into the AV system.
I think AV's are lot further away than most people think.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 21, 2018, 10:17:30 AM
Here is a quote from an article today on Uber pedestrian fatality...

“It’s possible that Uber’s automated driving system did not detect the pedestrian, did not classify her as a pedestrian, or did not predict her departure from the median,” Smith said in an email. “I don’t know whether these steps occurred too late to prevent or lessen the collision or whether they never occurred at all, but the lack of braking or swerving whatsoever is alarming and suggests that the system never anticipated the collision.”
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: peteo48 on March 21, 2018, 10:55:52 AM
This point about having to suddenly take over is a good one. If you are chilled out are you in the right state of mind to suddenly leap into action? I presume that's why the auto-pilot feature on Teslas requires you to touch the steering wheel from time to time.

This halfway house scenario is what concerns me in terms of reaction times when intervention is needed. The ability of humans to cope with this "emergency back stop" role is an area worthy of as much research as the technology itself. One likes to think this is being tested.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest5079 on March 21, 2018, 11:19:01 AM
[reference to deleted post removed by Admin]

Now, Culzean speaks of Girls using their phones and not paying attention. We have Facebook acting like big brother. People wandering the streets with a piece of plastic glued to their ears and feel dispossessed if they are stopped from using it. In Japan at pedestrian crossings special measures are in place to attract the phone users attention to stop their aimless wandering. Emails while supposedly working. Now we have autonomous vehicles looming large. Whilst they might be viable in the USA our road infrastructure is completely inadequate. Too many junctions and local authorities unable or incapable of keeping information up to date. e.g the A30 was shut due to snow. I wanted to make a trip so I logged on and the news was still from the previous evening. Road works that have been completed days ago. still posted as active. Nissan boss stated that at the end of the day, the human brain was still required to sort out that which artificial intelligence couldn't do. Progress can't be stopped BUT lets get Homo Sapien to engage their brain before engaging in the unknown.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 21, 2018, 11:21:42 AM
This point about having to suddenly take over is a good one. If you are chilled out are you in the right state of mind to suddenly leap into action? I presume that's why the auto-pilot feature on Teslas requires you to touch the steering wheel from time to time.

This halfway house scenario is what concerns me in terms of reaction times when intervention is needed. The ability of humans to cope with this "emergency back stop" role is an area worthy of as much research as the technology itself. One likes to think this is being tested.

I think this arrangement can only ever be regarded as an interim measure while development of the technology takes place. Drivers with this sort of technology in their cars permanently would inevitably become complacent. Until full autonomy become viable, and we are still a long way from that, some driver intervention has to be necessary.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on March 21, 2018, 10:54:53 PM
Here’s a couple of interesting links about the fatal accident in the US, describing the kind of issues the car’s systems will have been dealing with. Of course there are no conclusions at this stage (one of the reports suggests the NTSB report may take up to a year), but the tone seems more thoughtful and considered than the initial “The pedestrian is to blame !” speculation.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmcpherson/2018/03/20/uber-autonomous-crash-death/#6388b2947fbe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-21/for-self-driving-cars-seeing-everything-isn-t-always-enough

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 22, 2018, 11:43:18 AM
Here’s a couple of interesting links about the fatal accident in the US, describing the kind of issues the car’s systems will have been dealing with. Of course there are no conclusions at this stage (one of the reports suggests the NTSB report may take up to a year), but the tone seems more thoughtful and considered than the initial “The pedestrian is to blame !” speculation.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimmcpherson/2018/03/20/uber-autonomous-crash-death/#6388b2947fbe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-21/for-self-driving-cars-seeing-everything-isn-t-always-enough

Yep,  confirms what I have always thought about letting free roaming vehicles on our roads,  computers have trouble understanding the world the way humans do and have special problems with interpreting 'visual clues' (which is why captcha 'I am not a robot' uses pictures that humans can understand easily but computers cannot, they will also use strangely shaped letters and numbers to fool computers, once again humans have no problem interpreting them).  The fact that the vehicle showed no sign of swerving or braking is frightening,  also the fact that they are testing these vehicles in the best conditions of dry weather in places like Arizona is telling. 

I have worked with robotics and automated systems for a great part of my life and although they seem marvellous at repetitive tasks with some clever bits thrown in they are still a long way behind a human in interpreting the world.  If only we could get humans to pay attention and obey the rules there would be no need for driverless vehicles,  but unfortunately there are just too many distractions and the punishments for bad driving are far too lenient IMHO.

I had a chuckle when one article I read stated 'the vehicles sensors can tell the difference between life forms'  (sounds like something straight out of  Star Trek) and will hit a dog rather than a small child - looks like it can't even see a large object like a woman pushing a bicycle sideways on,  or maybe did detect it but thought is was a shadow.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinS on March 22, 2018, 01:38:52 PM
My view is that autonomy in vehicles should be limited to the lower of the published 1 to 5 levels.  We have all lived with automation, probably the simplest that we all except is self cancelling indicators.  But this in itself demonstrate the driver complacency issue.  Although infrequent, because the technology is good, we still see cars travelling on a straight road with their indicators going. Nothing is infallible.

Again most of us use cruise control, lane-keep assist etc. and I am comfortable with that.  But I still want to steer the car and slow down when I see a deer by the side of the road, or horses, cyclists etc.

IMHO we are still years of a computer being able to carry out the task of fully controlling a vehicle.  As was jus said:

If only we could get humans to pay attention and obey the rules there would be no need for driverless vehicles.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on March 22, 2018, 02:08:15 PM
Not having a home doesn't make you invisible.

Sadly, this is not really true in today's society. The homeless tend to be invisible to most of us. It is especially sad if they are now invisible to machine vision as well.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on March 22, 2018, 02:17:23 PM
So the pedestrian came out of the shadows and couldn’t be avoided ? But isn’t the hype about AVs supposed to be all about them being safer than human drivers ? I could believe a human would have had difficulty seeing someone in poor light, but surely the car’s lidar sensors aren’t affected by shadows, and aren’t they supposed to be constantly scanning for hazards ?
The shadows could well have been cast by the LIDAR, not necessarily light shadows from the sun or street lighting.

One thing humans do really well, and without conscious thought, is predict that if a moving object passes behind a stationary object and becomes invisible, it is highly likely to emerge on the other side of the object moving in more or less the same direction and at a similar speed.

This particular problem has to be trained in to an AI system using machine vision. Target tracking systems in missile technology have to solve the same problem.

Understanding the world around us - trajectory, occlusion, momentum, acceleration, direction in three dimensions, inertia, gravity, friction, wind resistance and direction, human impulse - comes naturally to most of us, but not yet to a robot.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on March 22, 2018, 04:17:51 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43497364

Dashcam footage of the crash is damning  ... lots of time to brake..
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on March 22, 2018, 04:27:48 PM
So the pedestrian came out of the shadows and couldn’t be avoided ? But isn’t the hype about AVs supposed to be all about them being safer than human drivers ? I could believe a human would have had difficulty seeing someone in poor light, but surely the car’s lidar sensors aren’t affected by shadows, and aren’t they supposed to be constantly scanning for hazards ?
The shadows could well have been cast by the LIDAR, not necessarily light shadows from the sun or street lighting.
The report that provoked my comment makes it clear that the Police Chief was commenting on video of the accident, so references to "shadows" must relate to shadows she could see on that video, rather than areas where the LIDAR was obstructed. Although I wouldn't disagree with your conclusions that the AV technology has a long way to go yet.

One thing that strikes me about this whole AV business is that we are told that the reason for developing them is road safety. That is, there is an intent that AVs will be safer and will therefore reduce road deaths. In order to do that the AV must not only match, but must out-perform, the human driver. If the technology had reached that level, we might reasonably expect the robot to have avoided the accident even if a human couldn't. Clearly Uber haven't reached that level of maturity yet.

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 22, 2018, 05:20:22 PM
One thing that strikes me about this whole AV business is that we are told that the reason for developing them is road safety. That is, there is an intent that AVs will be safer and will therefore reduce road deaths. In order to do that the AV must not only match, but must out-perform, the human driver. If the technology had reached that level, we might reasonably expect the robot to have avoided the accident even if a human couldn't. Clearly Uber haven't reached that level of maturity yet.

The whole AV thing is about economics, it is about getting rid of the driver who is the most costly thing, but dressing it up as road safety to make it more palatable.  It will fool a lot of people and put vehicles into the hands of big tech companies,  and because less people will learn to drive their business model will be secure for the future.

It was the same with robots in industry,  having a few highly trained programmers and  replacing skilled operators with 'machine loaders' (paid much less and could who could easily be moved between robot cells) to run things makes a lot of economic sense, and made life harder for trade unions and easier for businesses because they could now just grab someone off the street or from an agency and train them in an hour to load a machine.   But as one operator said to me when we had installed robots in their car plant 'that robot will never buy a car' (or anything else really),  can't argue with their logic.

One in every eight jobs in USA may disappear due to AV.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on March 23, 2018, 10:16:08 AM
The whole AV thing is about economics, it is about getting rid of the driver who is the most costly thing, but dressing it up as road safety to make it more palatable.

Actually, the UK government position is largely based around safety. Have a look at Section 1.2 of this:
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7965/CBP-7965.pdf
Other benefits are suggested, including increased mobility for people who currently can't drive, improved productivity (you can do something else whilst in the car), reduced congestion (by allowing vehicles to travel closer together ... the jury's out on that one). Doubtless individual companies (Uber, Stobart, etc) will exploit the possibilities and reduce their costs by getting rid of their drivers, but the need for the robots to be better than humans in order to be safer still holds.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 23, 2018, 10:44:33 AM
The whole AV thing is about economics, it is about getting rid of the driver who is the most costly thing, but dressing it up as road safety to make it more palatable.

Actually, the UK government position is largely based around safety. Have a look at Section 1.2 of this:
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7965/CBP-7965.pdf
Other benefits are suggested, including increased mobility for people who currently can't drive, improved productivity (you can do something else whilst in the car), reduced congestion (by allowing vehicles to travel closer together ... the jury's out on that one). Doubtless individual companies (Uber, Stobart, etc) will exploit the possibilities and reduce their costs by getting rid of their drivers, but the need for the robots to be better than humans in order to be safer still holds.

Yeah,  right   :-X   I am sure the saving of 35%+ of running costs by ditching the driver is right at the back of the queue when business looks at AV, they are obviously more interested in 'perceived' safety aspects.    People can work on trains, and business people polled said they prefer to work on the train as less distractions than at work,  but government still willing to pay £100 Billion + of our money to build HS2 vanity project and push out the London commuter belt even further. What they will not cough up is funding to lengthen platforms at existing stations to accept longer trains to increase capacity on existing routes.

British workers already work some of the longest hours in the EU and it may seem to business that here is an opportunity to cram even more (unpaid) hours into the working day.  AV may well increase congestion as they will be running about empty sometimes and people may well take the opportunity to make longer commutes if they don't have to drive,  there will also be peak times when many more vehicles will be needed than for the rest of the day.

section 4 of the document in your link notes that 'road infrastructure will have to be maintained to a much higher standard than at present' - but who will pay the bills if 1 in 8 people at least will be rendered unemployed by new tech.  It also talks about 'segregating CAV traffic from normal traffic' -  building roads especially for CAV,  even more expense - businesses will be saving money but the taxpayer (and less of them) will be footing the bills for extra special road maintenance and special roads. It has shades of low wage employers like Amazon being subsidised by taxpayer via tax credits and DHSS support for low earners.

Putting our transport option in the hands of a few large tech companies is a not a wise thing to do.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on March 23, 2018, 01:10:55 PM
British workers already work some of the longest hours in the world

No they don't. Far from it, according to the OECD.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/nationalities-that-work-the-longest-hours/
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 23, 2018, 02:00:46 PM
British workers already work some of the longest hours in the world

No they don't. Far from it, according to the OECD.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/nationalities-that-work-the-longest-hours/

maybe I should have specified 'in EU'
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest5079 on March 24, 2018, 11:32:32 AM
I did ask a question re the bicycle when this was first posted and I see that it now does get a mention. Also a cynical remark which I endorse whole heartily about the poor, more so in the USA. On many US soaps when a 'bag' lady is on the scene they are dismissed. The victim was presumably wheeling the cycle, by the plastic bags on the bike, it would suggest She was an unfortunate in that She was possibly homeless. I mention this as it is unlikely her bike was carbon fibre. It beggars belief that a killing instrument ( car) is let loose on the road without a driver and it could not pick up the signal from a metal bike, let alone a human being, which this Lady was despite her circumstances. We are constantly told that a computer can respond in milliseconds, so why did the car not swerve/stop etc. At the moment on TV is an ad for some super dooper Audi, that can pick up signals from the front side up/down and all around. It even senses rough surfaces. I don't know if it senses a pedestrian breaking wind. YET an autonomous vehicle could not detect a human and a piece of metal.  Perhaps VAG and the makers of the autonomous car ought to get together.
Sorry for the rant but Mr Trump is trying to take away medicare from the poor, perhaps this is a dastardly plot to get rid of them all together. All these AIDS are there to help not control our lives. Digressing a quote from my Computer Active,' Students are finding it so hard to kick their phone addiction they are being rewarded for not using it'  These are our brains of tomorrow, perhaps that why the autonomous car didn't see the woman because nobody programmed such an event in. If they can't do without the plastic glued to their ear what hope is there in the world for the simple minded such as I.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on March 24, 2018, 03:40:15 PM
If they can't do without the plastic glued to their ear what hope is there in the world for the simple minded such as I.

Have you seen them coming out of schools at turning out time? It's like the zombie apocalypse.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest5079 on March 25, 2018, 03:22:17 PM
Getting off subject but applicable: Observed, children playing in a park. That is using their phones/tablets etc. It has been reported that it has been witnessed that children were unable to turn the pages in a book ( the printed variety) Will anybody rescue Homo Sapien from this plague?
It is an aid NOT a GOD.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on March 25, 2018, 04:39:02 PM
All you are commenting on is Darwinsim in action.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest5079 on March 26, 2018, 02:47:16 PM
I am sorry to disagree. The mobile phone was I presume merely something to improve on the phone in ones home. All that has happened is some very clever people have convinced the masses that they MUST have one and that one MUST be the latest.ie 5G. We even now have phones that check the contents of your fridge not only tells you the sell by date but so you know what to buy. My Wife looks in the fridge just before we go shopping and buys what she wants. As to sell by dates, why have we got eyes? Another gem is that councils will know when to empty your bins. So when you bin is full your council will come along and empty it. Cloud cuckoo land comes to mind.We have just been told we will be down to fortnightly collections.
Darwinism is progress by evolution. All these phones do and the rest of the stuff we are being told we need is making Homo Sapien even more lazy. A gem from the local government people: The roads are being pounded by the number of home delivery vehicles. Sorry, I thought online shopping was killing the high street shop. How did we get there? Bus /Car nobody thought of the number of passenger miles saved.
Unfortunately I would suggest that man having too much time on his hands makes man dangerous. Is it' Idle hands makes devils work?'
Yes perhaps extreme but a point of view!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 27, 2018, 05:53:32 PM
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/266158-video-tempe-crash-public-looks-really-bad-uber-driver

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/video-suggests-huge-problems-with-ubers-driverless-car-program/

Here is a damning article on pedestrian death in Tempe, Arizona involving Uber system,  also says that the vehicle in question was only licensed to 30mph.

Wonder how many times Uber supervisors have had to intervene during the trails being carried out,  more information
may now be legally forced out of Uber. 
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: VicW on March 31, 2018, 01:41:26 PM
Here's another one.
What speed was the Tesla doing to cause that much damage, the whole of the front of the car is missing.
The emergency services would have cut the roof off if needed for rescue.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43604440

Vic.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on April 17, 2018, 09:10:00 AM
Discussion on this seems to have gone dead, so here's a contribution.

There's been a project running in the Bristol area for some time called Venturer, which involves running some impressively chunky-looking AVs on both private and public roads, see this: http://www.venturer-cars.com/. As well as the usual academic & techie experts the consortium includes an insurance company (AXA) and lawyers (Burges Salmon), who are considering the legal and liability issues associated with AVs. They've just published a progress report with current thoughts about this, available here:
https://www.axa.co.uk/uploadedFiles/Content/Newsroom_v2/Media_Resources/Reports_and_Publications/Downloads/Driverless_Cars/VENTURER_Insurance_and_Legal_Report_2018.pdf

For anyone who saw the item in yesterday's Times, this is the source data for that piece. It's 19 pages but readable and looks to be a thoughtful and well-balanced piece of work. It majors on the problems associated with "handover" between an AV and a driver when the computer gets into trouble (eg the look on the face of the driver just before impact in the recent Uber incident in Arizona). There's even a suggestion that some kind of driver's licence will still be needed, which could be a bit of an issue for those hoping that AVs will enable travel for people currently unable to drive (unaccompanied minors, visually handicapped, elderly, etc). There are no hard and fast conclusions about how to deal with the handover problem (like all good consultant's reports, more work is needed), but it does provide interesting food for thought.

Enjoy.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 17, 2018, 03:53:49 PM
Interesting series of reports (as is the government's "The Pathway To Driverless Cars"). Handover on HAVs (Highly Autonomous Vehicles) will always be an issue, and as the reports prove, having control handed back to you always takes a finite time to gather ones thoughts. And that is after a few minutes. Imagine having driven for 4 hours then suddenly getting control passed back!
A driving licence will always be required for these vehicles (as will a sober driver), since you will have the need to drive at some stage.
Once Fully Autonomous Vehicles come on the scene (Level 4 and 5), which will have no means of handing over to a driver, then licencing arrangements will change and minors and partially sighted will be catered for. This is the aim of all the concept cars being produced by the major manufacturers, with no driving controls and lounge style seating.
Still a long way from the government allowing them on the road though.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 17, 2018, 03:59:43 PM
Saw this today, purely by chance. Makes interesting reading.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43752226 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43752226)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on April 17, 2018, 06:11:33 PM
Once Fully Autonomous Vehicles come on the scene (Level 4 and 5), which will have no means of handing over to a driver, then licencing arrangements will change and minors and partially sighted will be catered for. This is the aim of all the concept cars being produced by the major manufacturers, with no driving controls and lounge style seating.

Hmmm, that wasn't my reading of the AXA report. From Page 23, Chapter 4, "Driver Competence":
"Drivers could become complacent and over-reliant on technology as they get used to driving in autonomous mode, creating the problem of ‘de-skilling’, particularly in terms of a reduction in ‘situational awareness’. Given that a driver may need to take back control of the vehicle, even with a fully autonomous vehicle [my emphasis], this could be problematic.".

That seems to suggest that the lawyers and insurers (noting that they are by nature both influential and conservative) think that some of the wilder flights of fancy from manufacturers are unlikely to actually appear on the roads in the foreseeable future if they have no means of a driver taking control.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 17, 2018, 07:27:20 PM
I agree entirely with your reading of the report. That is the current thinking. Fully autonomous vehicles may even be covered by a manufacturers insurance. After all, if there is no way to take over you are only a passenger, just as you are with Stagecoach and the like at present.
But as you so rightly say, not "in the foreseeable future".
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on April 18, 2018, 09:00:10 AM
How is a human driver supposed to be more able than a computer to drive a car in a tricky situation, if that human driver has not...

a) built up many years of driving skills themselves?
b) the immediate situational awareness of the computer, if they have not been required to be paying attention for the last x miles?

I think a fully autonomous AV needs to be exactly that. If it cannot be fully autonomous, then it will always be some form of driver assist, and therefore there needs to be a driver.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 18, 2018, 09:41:19 AM
How is a human driver supposed to be more able than a computer to drive a car in a tricky situation
I don't think they are envisioning a tricky situation. It is more a case of a situation the car is not designed to accommodate. After all, the Venturer trial found it took about 2-3 seconds for a driver to competently take charge of the vehicle. Not much use as you slide on black ice or plough towards a group of nuns on a zebra crossing!
The reports call systems that require a back up driver, Advanced Driver Assist and not Fully Autonomous, and the government's "The Pathway To Driverless Cars" differentiates between Highly Autonomous Vehicles (driver required) and Fully Autonomous Vehicles (where no driver is required).
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest5079 on April 18, 2018, 12:28:11 PM
Being a fully paid up  Luddite, one matter that comes to mind that I can find no reference too, is reaction time.
How long before a computer/sensor malfunctions in one of these vehicles does it inform the 'caretaker'? Or when the 'caretaker' realises there is a problem.
Given the reaction times for braking it begs the question would the 'caretaker' have enough time in which to rectify the problem or take control?
Even at low speed reaction time is still a long time when something is malfunctioning.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on April 18, 2018, 03:48:19 PM
Not much use as you slide on black ice or plough towards a group of nuns on a zebra crossing!

Even a human pair of eyeballs will struggle to see those!  ;D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on April 18, 2018, 04:03:27 PM
I think a fully autonomous AV needs to be exactly that. If it cannot be fully autonomous, then it will always be some form of driver assist, and therefore there needs to be a driver.
... the government's "The Pathway To Driverless Cars" differentiates between Highly Autonomous Vehicles (driver required) and Fully Autonomous Vehicles (where no driver is required).

I thought the definition of "Fully Autonomous" meant a driver is not required in normal operation. But does even a "Fully Autonomous" car need an alert driver capable of taking over in fault or unexpected conditions ? That does seem to be the suggestion in the Venturer report. If "Fully Autonomous" means the car must be capable of managing all unexpected or fault conditions (including system failures) without intervention, we are a very very long way from that and it may not be achievable. All systems built by man will have a failure rate, no matter how small they are, the best that can be expected is that the engineers can get the failure rate (aka fatality rate) for AVs below that for human drivers. But that's still going to involve people being killed by robot cars, which tends to make Joe Public sit up and pay attention.

On the subject of handover from computer to human when the computer decides it can't cope, there's an interesting example from the world of civil aviation. Flying commercial aeroplanes is highly regulated, highly automated, and the pilots have to pass all kinds of competency tests. But yet the pilots of Air France 447 made a mess of it when the computer handed control back to them because of unreliable data, and they managed to stall the thing all the way down into the Atlantic Ocean. If that kind of highly trained team can get it so horribly wrong, what chance does Mrs Bloggs texting in her AV whilst on the school run have when the computer says "No" ?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 18, 2018, 04:25:34 PM
From what I have read a Fully Autonomous Vehicle will be required to come to a safe stop if it cannot cope. That may mean it must have a secondary system that takes over if the main system fails. FAVs are currently operating on closed sites at the moment. It is trusting them out in the real world that is the issue.

From the government's "The Pathway To Driverless Cars":

Fully automated vehicle
2.8 This means a vehicle in which a driver is not necessary. The vehicle is designed to be capable of safely completing journeys without the need for a driver in all traffic, road and weather conditions that can be managed by a competent human driver.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on May 14, 2018, 07:25:55 PM
A Tesla has rear ended a truck stopped at a red light in Salt Lake City USA. hit the truck at 60 mph without even attempting to brake.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 14, 2018, 09:26:36 PM
No evidence as yet it was on Autopilot. But even if it was on Autopilot, what was the driver doing?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on May 15, 2018, 06:48:12 AM
No evidence as yet it was on Autopilot. But even if it was on Autopilot, what was the driver doing?

Sleeping
drinking
on a mobile..

That's the problem of autonomous vehicles- "drivers" switch off...

Anyone thinking autonomous vehicles will not crash as the driver will intervene  obviously thinks "drivers" will pay attention. With nothing to do, they will not..  It is human nature..
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 15, 2018, 07:29:16 AM
Where Tesla differ from other manufacturers offering advanced driver assists is that Tesla allows a fair length of time without driver input. After a few seconds, the Nissan Leaf 2 warns a driver if their hands are off the wheel. Tesla gives the driver a lot longer. Mercedes Benz monitors the driver's eyes, and if they are not on the road it gives a warning then slows down.
Seemingly, all the Autopilot does, on highway driving, is steers between clearly defined lane markings and maintains the gap from the vehicle in front. It is not meant for city driving. Another thing, which should be no surprise when you think about it, is it disregards stationary items in front of the vehicle. This is common to all these driver assist systems. They have to, otherwise the car would slow down and stop every time it came to a flyover.
Tesla's Autopilot, Nissan's Propilot and Mercedes Benz Drive Pilot, among others, are in no way Autonomous, just Advanced Driver Assists. Until drivers realise that they will continue to kill themselves and others on the roads
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on May 15, 2018, 09:59:56 AM
Get rid of seatbelt and airbags for driver, put a big spike in the middle of the steering wheel and a notice that distracted driving can result in death and you will have the drivers full attention on the road. I would also advocate a shock collar every time speed limit exceeded.

Car designers are too soft on bad drivers.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 15, 2018, 10:13:16 AM
I am reminded of the woman in the States, about 50 years back, who bought a new Winnebago. It was the first vehicle with Cruise Control she had ever owned. She crashed it on the Freeway, and when the traffic cop asked her what happened she said, "I don't know. I switched the cruise control on, then went back to make a pot of coffee.".
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on May 16, 2018, 08:16:38 AM
The only autonomous vehicles I will ever ride in are taxis and buses.

My Rav4 has adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and some form of brake assist. These are wonderful driver aids but that is all they are.

The other day the brake assist kicked in when the car in front used engine braking and slowed hard without his brake lights coming on, I was distracted momentarily and the system kicked in before I did. I believe I would have stopped the car in time but it would have been a close thing.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on May 16, 2018, 10:52:17 AM
The other day the brake assist kicked in when the car in front used engine braking and slowed hard without his brake lights coming on ...
Was the car in front maybe a Mk 3 Jazz with the driver using the "Intelligent" Speed Limiter ? It happened to me:
https://clubjazz.org/forum/index.php?topic=8617.msg44161#msg44161
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on May 16, 2018, 11:02:53 AM
The other day the brake assist kicked in when the car in front used engine braking and slowed hard without his brake lights coming on ...
Was the car in front maybe a Mk 3 Jazz with the driver using the "Intelligent" Speed Limiter ? It happened to me:
https://clubjazz.org/forum/index.php?topic=8617.msg44161#msg44161
It was a van I think, or maybe an SUV. Was white anyway. Definitely not a Jazz.

Turned that feature off on my Toyota. There is a point in Halifax where my old HRV used to look at a 40 sign and read it as 120 ! Of course this is not a problem in my '05 Jazz, which I am whizzing about in today.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on May 28, 2018, 04:31:36 PM
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/report-ranks-tesla-last-for-automated-driving#gs.FifRius

Some more bad news for Tesla as their autopilot system gets slated.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 28, 2018, 07:12:07 PM
Honda comes in at 16th and Tesla at 19th! Surprised to see GM in the top spot.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on June 12, 2018, 09:05:30 AM
Autopilot ? Not quite !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44439523

In the video, presumably the Tesla's "Autopilot" can only keep the car in lane, so it can't follow the car ahead round the obstacle.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 12, 2018, 09:50:38 AM
The Tesla Autopilot, Nissan ProPilot and the like only keep the car in lane and depend on clearly defined lane markings to do do. The Tesla Model X that killed its driver on the Freeway, recently, did so because the lane markings were not there. The issue with not stopping for a stationary object is also understandable. The car will follow a moving object, slow when it slows and stop when it stops. However, it will ignore stationary objects that it has always "seen" as stationary. Otherwise, how would it ever drive under a flyover, or pass a lamp post? The reason why the Tesla crashed into the stationary police car, again reported recently.
The problem isn't with the cars, it is with the numpties who drive them. All the appropriate manuals tell the driver they must keep control, watch where they are going. But who reads the manual?
I think, as the insurers say, cars should only say "assistance", and should not be described as autonomous until they can drive unaided by a human driver. In fact, it should be illegal to use "autonomous" in a car advert or brochure until such time as they can drive themselves.
Manufacturers are not doing the cause of Fully Autonomous vehicles any good by their approach which is giving the public the impression that the technology doesn't work. The technology does work, for what it is designed to do. It is just that some drivers think (or more likely don't think) it can do better than what it is designed for.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on June 12, 2018, 10:49:48 AM
No matter how you spin it or blame numpty users, a vehicle marketed with a system called “Autopilot” that cannot avoid a stationary object stopped in front of it is not fit for purpose.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 12, 2018, 11:20:42 AM
The name is not fit for purpose, not the vehicle!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on June 12, 2018, 01:17:17 PM
The name is not fit for purpose, not the vehicle!

No, I meant the vehicle.

You’re right that the name is misleading and that may be contributing to avoidable incidents. But irrespective of what the system is called and how much the owner understands about it, if a system that is supposed to aid the driver cannot avoid a stationary object then that system - and the car it is part of - is not fit for purpose. Seems to me that Autopilot actually increases driver workload because he has to monitor the system as well as the road, how can that be sensible ? If the driver has to constantly consider whether Autopilot is getting him into trouble, then why bother with it, why not just drive the car ?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 12, 2018, 02:09:37 PM
Whatever. The driver, in my opinion, has no more to do than a driver without Autopilot. If it is too much for him, he doesn't have to switch it on!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on June 12, 2018, 07:02:31 PM
However, it will ignore stationary objects that it has always "seen" as stationary. Otherwise, how would it ever drive under a flyover, or pass a lamp post? The reason why the Tesla crashed into the stationary police car, again reported recently.

Imagine a human driver ignoring 'stationary objects' - The fire truck was stationary, the Police car was stationary,  but they were vehicles and were on the carriageway so would not appear on a digital map as something that 'has always been stationary' ( I know Tesla does not use digital mapping so how the hell does it know if something is supposed to be stationary or not) - in fact in the article I read the Tesla 'sped' up as it approached the Fire truck (as it resumed its set speed). just like the Uber car did not slow down as it approached the woman pushing her bike across the road.  The hype of 'autonomous cars' has lost a bit of its shine recently as the cold facts of the limitations of technology have been exposed and it has dawned on people that replacing humans ain't gonna be as easy as silicon valley thinks, getting a piece of technology to do something in a nice controlled environment is one thing,  getting it to do the same out in the real world environment with its bad roads and unpredictability is quite another.

There are lies, damn lies, statistics and also what comes out of Musks mouth.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2016/1014/How-safe-is-Tesla-Autopilot-A-look-at-the-statistics

Article is a few years old,  but it just shows how things can get 'twisted to suit'.  Tesla would love to be able to claim the '1 fatality every 100 million miles' that humans achieve (and that figure includes pedestrians and all other road vehicles including bicycles, motorbikes. HGV, buses etc. etc.).
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 12, 2018, 09:33:11 PM
I know Tesla does not use digital mapping so how the hell does it know if something is supposed to be stationary or not
Quite simple. When it first "sights" the object it logs its position. If the car is travelling at 60 mph and the object is 88 ft closer after 1 second, it computes that it is stationary. If it is 44 ft closer, it computes that it is travelling at 30 mph. Obviously it is much more maths than my example, but the computer does that in milliseconds.
Compared with an autonomous vehicle the Tesla is as sophisticated as a Model T is to your current car.
This demonstration of Nissan's test vehicle shows how far true autonomous vehicles have progressed, and even that is a long way from being "driverless".

The Teslas involved in the accidents were doing what they were designed to do. They are just not designed for the driver not to maintain overriding control.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on June 12, 2018, 09:59:13 PM
Surely if something is stationary and positioned on the cars trajectory the bl00dy car should stop, you simply cannot have a system that ignores stationary objects,  let's face it computers just do not understand the world the way we do, and they will never be able to communicate properly because they do not have eyebrows........   
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 13, 2018, 06:41:36 AM
you simply cannot have a system that ignores stationary objects
That's what the driver's there for! Autopilot is only an assistance. Only a moron trusts it with their life (or the lives of others).
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on June 13, 2018, 09:27:39 AM
you simply cannot have a system that ignores stationary objects
That's what the driver's there for! Autopilot is only an assistance. Only a moron trusts it with their life (or the lives of others).

But other autonomous systems have to ignore stationary objects as well,  otherwise they could not operate - but most of them rely on digital 3D mapping to tell the controls system where street furniture is,  but as I posted a while ago only one wrong pixel in the millions (billions) required has to be wrong and the whole plan is up the kyber.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 13, 2018, 09:43:31 AM
But there are no autonomous systems out there, apart from research vehicles, which all have a driver.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on June 13, 2018, 10:25:54 AM
But there are no autonomous systems out there, apart from research vehicles, which all have a driver.

And that is likely to be the case for a long, long, long, long............................................ time yet.

https://qz.com/1064004/self-driving-cars-still-cant-mimic-the-most-natural-human-behavior/

They are not called a driver,  they are called a technician or some such obfuscation, keep the hype going at all costs  :-X
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Ralph on June 13, 2018, 01:10:55 PM
Just seen this and thought it might interest apology’s if it’s already been posted

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-44460980/this-car-is-on-autopilot-what-happens-next
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 22, 2018, 04:53:45 PM
I see that the Uber driver, who killed the pedestrian while in charge of an autonomous test car, was watching TV at the time. They are considering charging her with vehicular manslaughter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44574290 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44574290)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on June 25, 2018, 10:50:34 PM
I see that the Uber driver, who killed the pedestrian while in charge of an autonomous test car, was watching TV at the time. They are considering charging her with vehicular manslaughter.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44574290 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44574290)
I wouldn’t defend someone watching TV whilst at the wheel, but the “spin” in that report looks like a determined effort to shift the blame. Assuming it’s an accurate report, the last two paragraphs claim that the car spotted the poor lady but failed to identify her and did not take any avoiding action. That seems to suggest the software could have done better. But yet the headline, and the majority of the report, emphasises the driver’s behaviour, never mentioning that Uber put her in a position where she was apparently expected to remain 100% vigilant 100% of the time. I wonder how long her shift had been up to that point ? I guess that because she was behind the wheel she was deemed to be responsible and hence the (possible) prosecution, but I hope the fallout from this tragedy exposes the fallacy that a “safety driver” can instantly take over when necessary.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 26, 2018, 06:09:23 AM
Assuming it’s an accurate report, the last two paragraphs claim that the car spotted the poor lady but failed to identify her and did not take any avoiding action. That seems to suggest the software could have done better.
I agree, but these vehicles are being tested to improve the software, which is the reason there is a "safety driver". There is a difference between a driver who is less than 100% alert and vigilant and one who is watching telly.
Regarding the hours the driver had done, I have no idea what the US legislation allows for these tests, but as a business, I would imaging Uber would push the hours to the limit. But there again, she may just have come on shift.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on June 26, 2018, 08:18:55 AM
The whole concept of a “safety driver” who is able to step in and save the day when the computer screws up seems dubious to me. Humans are not generally capable of extended periods of concentration before our attention starts to wander (the references suggest around 20 - 30 minutes). So if Uber is expecting it’s “safety drivers” to maintain concentration for longer periods (Ref 2 suggests they do 8 hour shifts) when that is simply not possible for the average human, then the whole testing philosophy is flawed. Glad they’re not doing it on roads near me (yet).

References:
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_span
2. https://www.wired.com/story/uber-crash-arizona-human-train-self-driving-cars/

This is a different report to the BBC one, albeit with info taken from the same source:
https://bgr.com/2018/06/22/uber-self-driving-car-crash-arizona-hulu-logs/
The final sentence is telling: “But we also shouldn’t let Vasquez [the safety driver] be the scapegoat for an Uber self-driving test that by all accounts was insufficient and unsafe to be testing on public roads, regardless of who was behind the wheel.”
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 26, 2018, 09:07:35 AM
Uber self-driving test that by all accounts was insufficient and unsafe to be testing on public roads, regardless of who was behind the wheel.”
Exactly. But she didn't help herself by watching TV. At least, if she had fallen asleep, she would have had some sort of excuse.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on June 26, 2018, 09:58:52 AM
The main reason Uber ( and maybe others) moved their autonomous vehicle testing away from California is that they were required to report every single incident where the 'safety driver' (LOL) had to assume control of the vehicle (which was far too often according to many reports),  in Arizona there is no such requirement - sounds a bit fishy to me.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/uber-arizona-secret-self-driving-program-governor-doug-ducey
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on June 26, 2018, 10:26:10 AM
It reads very much as though Uber has/had the governor in their pocket. The same can't be said about members of our administration!  :-X
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 05, 2018, 03:14:59 PM
Baidu, in China, has announced it has started mass production of self driving buses. These buses will be Level 4, which means they will be programmed for particular routes. As the blurb says, "last-mile" drop-offs within enclosed areas, such as airports and tourist sites.
As an ex-bus driver I often felt I was on autopilot, after a 10 hour shift driving the same urban route!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44713298 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44713298)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 12, 2018, 08:56:08 AM
Daimler, owners of Mercedes Benz, are to launch a small fleet of driverless taxis in California, next year. They have already received permission to test autonomous cars in Germany and China as well as in the US.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44788816 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44788816)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 13, 2018, 04:47:26 PM
https://usa.spectator.co.uk/2018/07/the-dream-of-driverless-cars-is-dying/

Thought it had gone a bit quiet on AV, not even any fantasy Hype announcements in the news to keep us amused.....
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 13, 2018, 09:20:56 PM
Baidu, in China, has announced it has started mass production of self driving buses. These buses will be Level 4, which means they will be programmed for particular routes. As the blurb says, "last-mile" drop-offs within enclosed areas, such as airports and tourist sites.
As an ex-bus driver I often felt I was on autopilot, after a 10 hour shift driving the same urban route!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44713298 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44713298)

Most car factories had AV delivery vehicles running around the factory in the early 1980's - they followed a wire buried in the floor.  They were able to stop at fixed points or when requested, were reliable, never went off track and quiet,  maybe we need to bury wires in public roads for AV buses to follow.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on July 17, 2018, 12:34:38 PM
We can always rely on the BBC to come up with a new story on this...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-44824459/the-self-driving-car-that-s-50-years-old

Despite the message, you can clearly see the 'driver' grab the wheel to avoid a hay bale! Still, they knocked this up in 6 weeks which is good going.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 17, 2018, 01:17:12 PM
I saw the video from Goodwood Festival Of Speed and their autonomous Mustang was a bit tongue in cheek. It reminded me of Blue Peter's, Tracy Island. Or something from Scrapheap Challenge or Red Bull Soapbox Race.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 17, 2018, 02:01:48 PM
We can always rely on the BBC to come up with a new story on this...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-44824459/the-self-driving-car-that-s-50-years-old

Despite the message, you can clearly see the 'driver' grab the wheel to avoid a hay bale! Still, they knocked this up in 6 weeks which is good going.

I have noticed a concerted effort on BBC to introduce mentions of EV into pretty much everything they can,  just pushing government policy - the BBC independent ? don't make me laff  >:(

Seems like Tesla cars having same problem as Samsung phones a few years ago,  spontaneous combustion.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44511200   (and yes I am quoting a BBC source LOL)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 17, 2018, 05:12:12 PM
Information from https://www.fireservice.co.uk/ (https://www.fireservice.co.uk/)

Every year in the UK, over 100,000 cars which equates to nearly 300 a day go up in flames and around 100 people die as a result. Around 65% of these fires are started deliberately to cover criminal activity, to make a fraudulent insurance claim or as an act of vandalism.

So that means 35,000 cars catch fire, in the UK, of their own accord.

That Tesla, which I had noted last month, happened to have been driven by a British TV director, and got a mention.
If it had been a Ford Focus, driven by a builder it would have been lucky to have got a mention in the local rag.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 17, 2018, 05:35:35 PM
Information from https://www.fireservice.co.uk/ (https://www.fireservice.co.uk/)

Every year in the UK, over 100,000 cars which equates to nearly 300 a day go up in flames and around 100 people die as a result. Around 65% of these fires are started deliberately to cover criminal activity, to make a fraudulent insurance claim or as an act of vandalism.

So that means 35,000 cars catch fire, in the UK, of their own accord.

That Tesla, which I had noted last month, happened to have been driven by a British TV director, and got a mention.
If it had been a Ford Focus, driven by a builder it would have been lucky to have got a mention in the local rag.

Yeah but not many Teslas on the roads in UK,  another more useful stat would be the number of ICE compared with EV per 1000 on the road that catch fire.  A major cause of vehicle fires is bad maintenance (leaking fuel and oil) - and older vehicles more likely than newer ones to suffer,  the oldest Tesla is not really that old yet and they tend to be owned by rich people who get them looked at regularly.  So maybe this is a ticking clock as EV get older and don't get maintained.  The toxic fumes emitted by Li-Ion batteries also mean that fumes from EV batteries can easily kill (that s why it is mandatory for emergency services attending EV fires to wear breathing equipment even in open air - so terrorists park an EV in a crowded place and set fire to it LOL
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 17, 2018, 06:03:46 PM
Interesting video and some interesting comments.

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 22, 2018, 06:14:33 PM
So silicon valleys cover is now well and truly blown, they say they are 'enablers' to free people from big business La La La. Turns out they are a bigger bunch of crooks than all the other businesses combined,  their motive is pure profit, they do not pay taxes in any country, and they expect countries taxpayers to subsidize their low payed employees via tax credits and other payments ( Amazon, Uber, etc  say they are self employed and have no rights as employees).  Uber sets up in countries, destroys normal taxi driver trade, encourages taxi drivers to borrow money on the promise of big paybacks but the truth is because Uber do not protect their employees (yes they are employees) they sign up far too many taxi drivers who then see their earnings fall down a hole and when the drivers protest they are told 'please yourself, it is either Uber way or the highway' and we have plenty of other drivers if you don't want to,  some people are committing suicide because they are in debt and have no way to make decent money.

Silicon Valley is putting people out of jobs all over the world, by 2030 probably half the people on the planet will not have a job because their tech is replacing people - then the social problems will really start,  and its companies are as predatory in its pursuit of profit as any other global business.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 22, 2018, 06:51:21 PM
Not quite Autonomous vehicle specific but I get your point.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 22, 2018, 07:24:18 PM
Not quite Autonomous vehicle specific but I get your point.

Turns out Uber is one of silicon valleys worst, so it is relevant to AV, they will behave just as badly with their autonomous taxis.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on August 28, 2018, 04:10:36 PM
I see that Toyota is investing half a Billion dollars in Uber and expanding a partnership to jointly develop self-driving cars. Mind you, Uber is supposedly spending $1m - $2m per day on autonomous vehicle technology.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45324753 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45324753)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on September 15, 2018, 04:26:24 PM
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3262112/artificial-intelligence/why-autonomous-cars-won-t-be-autonomous.html

An interesting article an AI and its usefulness ( or not ) in relation to autonomous vehicles.

It seems to have gone very quiet on AV last six to twelve months, I think it is finally sinking in how hard it is gonna be to replace humans...
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on October 04, 2018, 07:21:53 AM
I read this morning that Honda are investing $2.75 billion to take a stake in General Motors self-driving unit, GM Cruise.

Honda to invest $2.8bn in GM's self-driving car unit (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45728169)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on October 15, 2018, 07:59:44 PM
This is the problem with AI and automating cars..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox

The 'hard' things like playing chess are easy to program as they rely on well regulated rules, the 'easy' things like recognising a chair from different angles ( that any five year old can do ) are the most difficult.

Also this.  https://phys.org/news/2015-10-cars-fully-driverless-historian.html
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on October 22, 2018, 07:54:29 AM
According to the BBC, Addison Lee, the premium private hire and courier service, are planning on self driving taxis, in London, by 2021. Chancellor Philip Hammond said last year he wanted to have "fully driverless cars" without a safety attendant on board in use by 2021, so this is in line with that hope.

BBC Business report of Addison Lee's announcement (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45935000)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on October 22, 2018, 10:09:02 AM
According to the BBC, Addison Lee, the premium private hire and courier service, are planning on self driving taxis, in London, by 2021. Chancellor Philip Hammond said last year he wanted to have "fully driverless cars" without a safety attendant on board in use by 2021, so this is in line with that hope.

BBC Business report of Addison Lee's announcement (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45935000)

Humans are so much better than anyone likes to admit, sure there are 'narrow AI' devices that can beat us at some things,  but overall our understanding of the world and making sense of what we see is in most part so instinctive that we think anything can do it,  unfortunately that is not the case. Would not surprise me if sleazy politicians like Phil Hammond have lots of shares in autonomous car companies and are pushing the tech for personal gain. Politicians do not understand most things,  but they understand money pretty good, and if it comes down to profit or the good of the public,  guess what comes first ?  One of the things Trump supporters like about him is 'that he understands business made his money before he went into politics, most others do it the other way around' (hint - most politicians trained as lawyers or accountants).  MIT and other high tech institutions realise the limitations of the the tech,  as one MIT professor said, 'don't expect your autonomous taxi to turn up if the weather is bad' ( one of the reasons the present trials are carried out in perfectly dry states like Arizona ).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/15/crucial-flaw-of-self-driving-cars-always-need-human-involvement
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on October 22, 2018, 08:37:59 PM
By a ratio of 3:1 fatal accidents occur more on rural roads, where speeds are higher, roads are narrower, more twisty and hilly, road surfaces not so good and often covered in leaves or mud - this is the area where autonomous cars could make the most difference ( if they could ever travel above 15mph ), but it is the area where they will be least at home. With hedges and trees scattering back random reflections to sensors, road markings missing or obscured by leaves or mud and roads not cleared of snow. Initially ( and IMHO for a long time ) AV will be restricted to small and well defined city areas, where accidents are normally a lot less serious than in rural areas. Will it be possible for AV to pass on a single track road with passing refuges like normal human controlled cars do all the time ? How about if an AV has to cross a double white line to pass a slow or stopped tractor or vehicle, and how about detecting and safely passing cyclists ?  Just a few on many scenarios that humans take in their stride and hardly need to think about.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on October 22, 2018, 09:40:56 PM
Agree with Culzean above. I regularly cross a ford, travel along roads strewn with branches after storms, travel through snowdrifts etc.

How will autonomous cars cope with deep snow? And ice? Badly I suggest..(and one winter morning with literally everything covered with 1cm of shiny ice - trees, walls, the road, signs etc.. breathtakingly beautiful but reflecting light everywhere)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on October 23, 2018, 03:54:54 PM
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/01/09/476667.htm

"Companies pursuing automated driving are appealing to cities to build infrastructure that will aid the functioning of their autonomous vehicles. For Aptiv and Lyft’s demo in Las Vegas, traffic lights along the route are equipped with sensors that give the cars extra directive on whether to stop or go"

This article says what I have thought for a long time,  that the roads will have to change to suit AV. Transponders on traffic signals and speed limit signs etc etc - why not just put wires under the road like they have been doing in industry with AV internal logistic trains since early 1980's ...   This is why AV will be limited to certain specific urban areas that have been modified for their needs, and the idea of free roaming AV that can take you from Lands End to John O'Groats remains a distant pipe dream, science fiction that may never become science fact.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on October 30, 2018, 04:47:23 PM
Just reading a book about the human brain, first thing that interested me is that humans underwent a massive increase in brain size ( compared to our chimpanzee ancestors ) when they started eating meat ( bring me a 16 ounce T bone I have an exam coming up  lol). The other interesting bit was that in a piece of the human brain the size of a grain of sand there are around a thousand million connections - literally mind blowing.  Most of our brain runs in automatic mode, and the amount of brain we use to carry out 'voluntary' tasks like driving is tiny ( but the background brain is seamlessly processing all the vision and muscle movements in the background).  This is what crude human AI has to compete against.... a massively competent human computer perfected over millions of years of evolution, where the fittest and most able survived.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 06, 2018, 08:21:21 AM
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/27/17163264/autonomous-car-self-driving-advertising-business

This makes bad reading for anyone who hates online ads - prepare to be bombarded by advertisments you cannot turn off during your autonomous car journey ( LOL )
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on November 27, 2018, 09:57:00 AM
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/3/17530232/self-driving-ai-winter-full-autonomy-waymo-tesla-uber

This article discusses the present 'AI winter' - as the evangelists of driverless cars realise what a hard act to follow the human brain is..


https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/02/09/a-v-safety-2018-update/

This article tracks the trends of 'disengagement' ( when auto system has to be overridden  by a human ) and notes that they are not getting any less,  and while not every disengagement is an accident,  but being kind and saying 1 in 10 may well be, it seems the cars still have a long long way to go to match present human safety record.

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on January 28, 2019, 01:38:23 PM
You could not make this stuff up...

From computing.co.uk - Could lidars damage camera sensors used on self driving vehicles?

https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3069964/could-lidars-damage-camera-sensors-used-on-self-driving-vehicles?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=CTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&im_edp=140013-a1c9d342563edd34%26campaignname%3DCTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&utm_term=Other%20-%20Bank&im_company=YORKSHIRE%20BUILDING%20SOCIETY&utm_term=2000%20to%204999 (https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3069964/could-lidars-damage-camera-sensors-used-on-self-driving-vehicles?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=CTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&im_edp=140013-a1c9d342563edd34%26campaignname%3DCTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&utm_term=Other%20-%20Bank&im_company=YORKSHIRE%20BUILDING%20SOCIETY&utm_term=2000%20to%204999)

Most of the article is behind a paywall / membership wall, but I think the headline tells you all that you need to know. I think this stems from a story from the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this month when a guy with a brand new camera took photos of an autonomous vehicle on display, with active lidar, and later realised his camera sensor had duff pixels.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on January 28, 2019, 02:15:17 PM
You could not make this stuff up...

From computing.co.uk - Could lidars damage camera sensors used on self driving vehicles?

https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3069964/could-lidars-damage-camera-sensors-used-on-self-driving-vehicles?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=CTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&im_edp=140013-a1c9d342563edd34%26campaignname%3DCTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&utm_term=Other%20-%20Bank&im_company=YORKSHIRE%20BUILDING%20SOCIETY&utm_term=2000%20to%204999 (https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3069964/could-lidars-damage-camera-sensors-used-on-self-driving-vehicles?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=CTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&im_edp=140013-a1c9d342563edd34%26campaignname%3DCTG.Daily_RL.EU.A.U&utm_term=Other%20-%20Bank&im_company=YORKSHIRE%20BUILDING%20SOCIETY&utm_term=2000%20to%204999)

Most of the article is behind a paywall / membership wall, but I think the headline tells you all that you need to know. I think this stems from a story from the CES show in Las Vegas earlier this month when a guy with a brand new camera took photos of an autonomous vehicle on display, with active lidar, and later realised his camera sensor had duff pixels.

We used to use much shorter range laser sensors at a company i worked for and they all carried a health warning that the beam could damage your eyes,  we even had to put heavily coloured plastic screens around the cells where laser sensors were used to prevent any stray beam shining in anyones eyes, the only other places we had to do this was when MIG and TIG welding robots were used.  The LIDAR lasers are long range and pretty powerful so it does not surprise me at all that they can wreck camera sensors,  but these LIDAR equipped vehicles will be operating in public spaces - --- so where are the safeguards for humans and any cameras that are around ? 

Radar is another thing most cars are getting nowadays,  and driverless cars need more of it and more powerful systems, over 200 yards range to be any use at all at speeds above a walking pace.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjYs-OW1ZDgAhUJVBUIHaN7DysQFjAAegQICxAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwi-cancer.info%2FAutomotive%2520Radar.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3bfZfoxPV7nm-gqvTHIGSW

It has all gone very quiet on the self-driving car news front, no headlines promising us self driving cars within 12 months due to massive breakthroughs on AI and magical new sensors,  I guess the AV people have suddenly realised how far behind humans their efforts have been so far and they have realised that the last 5% will be harder than the first 95% - as usual the devil is in the detail.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on January 28, 2019, 03:10:46 PM
Bit more about it here.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/man-says-ces-lidars-laser-was-so-powerful-it-wrecked-his-1998-camera/ (https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/man-says-ces-lidars-laser-was-so-powerful-it-wrecked-his-1998-camera/)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on January 28, 2019, 03:53:59 PM
Bit more about it here.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/man-says-ces-lidars-laser-was-so-powerful-it-wrecked-his-1998-camera/ (https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/man-says-ces-lidars-laser-was-so-powerful-it-wrecked-his-1998-camera/)

So this could affect dashcams and any other camera like CCTV and smartphones - and the more AV around the more likely it is to have a beam coming your way...according to articles I have read previously the human lens and aqueous humour filters out LIDAR wavelengths before they get to retina, but replacement lenses may not - in any case if the eye absorbs these pulses they are bound to cause damage..most of the lasers work on infrared wavelengths which generate heat in anything they shine on.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on January 28, 2019, 10:21:34 PM
Prince Philip will be alright though. The lidar can’t penetrate his cataracts.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on March 03, 2019, 06:33:39 PM
https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/delusions/realism-creeps-driverless-dream-2019-02/

Maybe reality is dawning at last, thought it had all gone quiet with no announcements of massive breakthroughs just around the corner and free roaming driver less vehicles able to drive from one end of country to the other on their own.

https://qz.com/1397504/all-the-things-that-still-baffle-self-driving-cars-starting-with-seagulls/
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 23, 2019, 09:47:12 AM
Elon Musk has just announced that a new microchip developed jointly with Samsung should see driverless taxis operating in some US cities by 2020.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/22/tech/tesla-robotaxis/index.html (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/22/tech/tesla-robotaxis/index.html)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on April 23, 2019, 10:20:24 AM
Elon Musk has just announced that a new microchip developed jointly with Samsung should see driverless taxis operating in some US cities by 2020.

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/22/tech/tesla-robotaxis/index.html (https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/22/tech/tesla-robotaxis/index.html)

Good Ole Elon certainly knows how to keep investors happy with regular doses of Hype..... he is like Thomas Edison ( who was a salesman not an engineer,  and he made loads of money out of filching other peoples ideas and marketing them before they did).
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 13, 2019, 10:34:03 AM
BMW has confirmed that the iNext, their all electric SUV, will feature Level 3 autonomous driving when it is released in 2021, but they will also release a fleet of 500 Level 5 vehicles for testing around the world, with a view to allowing governments to design legislation to cover the use of such vehicles.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 15, 2019, 08:47:36 AM
Interesting video on Autonomous vehicles. I think culzean will agree with most of this.

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on May 15, 2019, 09:38:10 AM
I have been involved in automation pretty much all my working life and it is very hard to make things behave even in a well organised environment. When the car programmers come out with statements ( after driverless cars hit stationary vehicles as big as firetrucks ) that 'we have to program the system to ignore stationary objects otherwise they stop for every fire hydrant and keep right bollard' you wonder what is going on. Humans have a great ability to anticipate things, when I am driving along a curved road with cars parked I often see a reflection of a vehicle or a DRL in a car door and slow down and move left before I even see the vehicle..  I saw an article once where a programmer said that those captchur images used for website security ( click on squares with traffic lights, buses, fire hydrants etc etc etc are actually used to make the AI of driver less cars better ).  They say driver less cars are already better than humans - but one fatality every 100,000,000 miles for human drivers in USA takes some beating.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 15, 2019, 10:09:10 AM
So it does, but the figure for 2017 was actually 1 death per 8,652,681 miles driven, according to Wiki.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on May 17, 2019, 08:52:12 PM
Tessa cars really seem to be attracted to large trucks.

https://www.wired.com/story/teslas-latest-autopilot-death-looks-like-prior-crash/

Stated once again in this article that 'radar is programmed to ignore stationary objects to filter out false positives '  but the cameras did not pick up the truck either. 
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 17, 2019, 09:03:51 PM
After reading the report it seems like natural selection at play.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on May 23, 2019, 08:20:52 PM
https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/self-driving-cars-dont-hold-your-breath.html

When a 5 year old can outperform the AI controlling a vehicle time to reconsider.   When an AV does not recognise a pedestrian because they are pushing a bicycle ( and kills them ) and a painting of a person on a billboard or vehicle fools an AV, when an AV has been programmed to ignore stationary objects because if is not it will stop every few metres. The AV car makers moved their testing out of California because the states laws required them to report every time the vehicle went wrong and human had to take control, because the figures were awful.   Don't hold you breath.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 23, 2019, 08:50:04 PM
Read a report this week about a journo who was being chauffeured in one of the Waymo self driving taxis in Phoenix, Arizona. They were on a busy freeway and when they came to their off ramp they couldn't get into lane one, as the traffic was nose to tail. A human driver would have pushed until someone let them in, but the AI was being extra safe, and they ended up going three more off ramps before it could get off!
Accidents that are caused by drivers trying to get Level 3 vehicles doing Level 5 driving I ignore. The woman pushing the bike was down to the driver of the car, not the AI. I admit that AI is not there yet, and may be a number of years before it gets there, but the will is there and the technology will get there.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on May 24, 2019, 02:12:45 PM
They were on a busy freeway and when they came to their off ramp they couldn't get into lane one, as the traffic was nose to tail. A human driver would have pushed until someone let them in, but the AI was being extra safe, and they ended up going three more off ramps before it could get off!

However, autonomous cars have one potential advantage over humans - the potential to communicate and negotiate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-48359322/driverless-cars-cambridge-university-model-cars-talk-to-avoid-jams

Watch the video and see the difference when the cars communicate with each other. Humans would never behave like that.

Of course this will only work well when ALL cars are autonomous, as one belligerent human would mess up the whole flow.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 27, 2019, 01:13:27 PM
Just watched Click, on BBC News channel (available on iPlayer here https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00073xh/click-the-selfdriving-revolution (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00073xh/click-the-selfdriving-revolution) ) and it was very enlightening. Didn't realise culzean was a US Army vet  ;D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on July 27, 2019, 02:47:11 PM
That guy from Oxbots seemed to be saying that humans could not judge distance and the Lidar / Radar stuff was better, for all intents and purposes within the limit of how far you can see and how far you need to see to judge distance for braking etc humans are superb.  What happens when a fly or something bigger gets splattered on the sensors, it is bad enough on a motorbike with a pretty big visor and field of view,  but on those cameras it could easily block 50% or more of the view, snowflakes, rain, mist and fog still a problem for the sensors used at present.  Humans also have anticipation and can recognize what something is even if we have not seen it before, and anticipate how the situation will unfold, things like leaving as much room as possible when passing parked cars in case a door opens etc. .   The problem with humans is getting them to pay attention,  if they did there would not be a problem,  human emotions are also a problem and many accidents are caused by aggression for some perceived wrong done to you by another road user.  Human senses are superb for driving,  humans being distracted and emotional are the problem.

The frightening think about the Uber Volvo / pedestrian fatality was that the vehicle made no attempt to slow down,  and stories of systems having to be programmed to ignore stationary objects ( even ones as big as fire trucks that cars have hit without attempting to slow down) because if they weren't they would be stopping for every lamp-post or fire hydrant or keep left sign are not encouraging.

If I was a Veteran I would have used a Bazooker not a pistol....
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on July 28, 2019, 10:01:18 AM
How many dirty cars do you see in the UK in winter due to salt and grit spray? In a period of bad weather maybe half the cars are like that.

Imagine the sensors on an AV... 

"Wash your car sensors every day and after 100 miles on a motorway"...  ain't going to happen...
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinS on July 28, 2019, 10:42:20 AM
My parking sensors went berserk last week due a fly impaling itself on one of the front sensors.  Of course it only activated when I slowed down at a junction.  It was one of those brief panic moments while I figured out WTF was happening.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 28, 2019, 01:16:09 PM
Autonomous car will probably keep its own sensors clean. Even if it didn't. it would stop you driving until they are clean.
Parking sensors are about as basic a sensor as you can get. Radar and Lidar a bit more sophisticated.
Big bumper trucks in the mines seem to manage in dirty conditions.

http://digg.com/2017/waymo-clean-lidar (http://digg.com/2017/waymo-clean-lidar)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on July 28, 2019, 04:42:41 PM
My parking sensors went berserk last week due a fly impaling itself on one of the front sensors.  Of course it only activated when I slowed down at a junction.  It was one of those brief panic moments while I figured out WTF was happening.
Snow settling on my moving car has caused the same thing for me.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on July 28, 2019, 04:44:07 PM
Parking sensors are about as basic a sensor as you can get. Radar and Lidar a bit more sophisticated.
Big bumper trucks in the mines seem to manage in dirty conditions.
Indeed. A fly would be invisible to Radar.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 28, 2019, 05:44:24 PM
Yes, because it is not designed to look for flies.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on July 28, 2019, 10:38:58 PM
Indeed. A fly would be invisible to Radar.

Hmm....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49023143
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest4871 on July 28, 2019, 10:57:18 PM
Indeed. A fly would be invisible to Radar.

Hmm....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49023143

 ;D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 29, 2019, 08:33:46 AM
And raindrops are visible on radar. I remember sailing up the Red Sea in torrential rain. The radar showed the rain surrounding our ship for several miles, then dry beyond that. The desert either side probably hadn't had rain for 100 years!
After leaving the Merchant Navy I went on to become a Radio Radar mechanic, with the now defunct Ferranti.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on July 29, 2019, 02:26:27 PM
Well, yes, but I meant a dead fly spattered on the radar  8).

I worked for Marconi Radar in Leicester for a while, right next door to the Ferranti factory. Back then, a job was a job, not a pastime.

The Leicester site used to prepare complete radar installations ready to be just lowered on to the ship. So they left the factory ready painted battleship grey and with gold plated electrical contacts. Well, can you imagine the number of battleship grey cars there was driving around Leicester, or gold plated items. Need a kettle shot blasting? No problem Sir, just take it down the workshop.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 29, 2019, 02:39:38 PM
Well, yes, but I meant a dead fly spattered on the radar
It would if it was big enough to cover as much of the receiving array as the one on the parking sensor!  ;D
I started with Marconi Marine as a ship's Radio Officer, working on Marconi radar systems as well as my radio duties.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on September 07, 2019, 12:54:40 PM
I downloaded the NTSB report on the Tesla that collided with the stationary fire truck.

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB1907.pdf (https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HAB1907.pdf)

It makes for interesting reading.
The guy bought the car, and though it came with a comprehensive manual, he didn't bother to read it. On the morning of the collision he was not holding the wheel and the car kept warning him, he was eating a bagel and drinking coffee while possibly "changing the radio" (his words). He had set the cruise control for 80 mph, though he was in a 65 mph limit.
He had been crawling along, in the HOV lane, behind a slow moving SUV or "truck". When it moved into the next lane to pass the fire truck (and accident) his car started to accelerate towards the 80 mph set speed. He still never thought to look up. Luckily it was only doing 31 mph when it struck the truck, but he definitely sounds like a nominee for "The Darwin Awards".

(https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/fit-in/1200x0/filters%3Aformat%28jpg%29/https%3A%2F%2Fspecials-images.forbesimg.com%2Fimageserve%2F3642df0decb64455aa00f57542b295a6%2F0x0.jpg%3FcropX1%3D0%26cropX2%3D3000%26cropY1%3D60%26cropY2%3D1747)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on September 10, 2019, 10:33:46 AM
I have driven the 405. That is the scariest road ever. And I have driven some scary roads. No way would I trust any kind of automation on that thing. There's a central 'high speed' lane you can get in and it has kerbs between it and the rest of the highway, with only occasional gaps to filter out. You'd better filter out early because it is so easy to miss your junction. Nobody wants to let you filter on the 405.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on September 10, 2019, 10:45:11 AM
That is the HOV lane the Tesla was in. Electric vehicles are allowed in the high-occupancy vehicle lane, even when only the driver is in the vehicle. Probably just as well in this case!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on September 10, 2019, 11:42:13 AM
Yes you're right, high occupancy, not high speed. There's no real chance of high speed anyway in downtown LA. If I ever go back there, I will not be driving!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on December 30, 2019, 05:56:48 PM
In the news today, they are looking at trialling fully size autonomous buses, in passenger service, between Fife and Edinburgh, during 2020.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50948624 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50948624)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: JimSh on December 30, 2019, 07:11:55 PM
In the news today, they are looking at trialling fully size autonomous buses, in passenger service, between Fife and Edinburgh, during 2020.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50948624 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50948624)

Just have a big whisky, shut your eyes and you'll be fine.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on January 06, 2020, 03:57:44 PM
The Russian car with no driver at the wheel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224)

And in the snow!

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on January 06, 2020, 04:44:33 PM
The Russian car with no driver at the wheel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224)

And in the snow!

Looking at some of the Russian dashcam footage, it's bound to be safer than your average Russian driver!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on January 07, 2020, 08:43:37 AM
The Russian car with no driver at the wheel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224)

And in the snow!

Looking at some of the Russian dashcam footage, it's bound to be safer than your average Russian driver!

 :D ;D :D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on January 07, 2020, 09:39:01 AM
The Russian car with no driver at the wheel.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51003224)

And in the snow!

Looking at some of the Russian dashcam footage, it's bound to be safer than your average Russian driver!

A blind man who has just drunk a bottle of vodka and snorted cocaine while smoking pot would be safer than most of those Russian drivers, horrendous the way they gaily speed into situations that are deteriorating rapidly and a five year old could see what is gonna happen.... They could make a movie length compilation of Russian dashcam footage and call it 'Death Wish 6' or whatever..
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on January 07, 2020, 09:46:16 AM
I think all the hype over AV has quietly been shut down as engineers realise the limitations of what they can actually do, which turns out to be 'not much' -

https://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/self-driving-cars-a-decade-of-hype-but-what-s-the-reality-1.4735578
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on January 07, 2020, 10:53:38 AM
Maybe the emphasis is shifting to “driver assistance” rather than “driver replacement”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51015921

Meanwhile there are many aerospace companies, both established and start-ups, looking cautiously towards autonomous aerial taxis as a solution for those who simply want to get from A to B, eg:
https://www.flightglobal.com/helicopters/bells-evtol-vision-changes-as-it-eliminates-two-rotors-and-goes-all-electric/136000.article
&
https://www.flightglobal.com/business-aviation/volocopter-launches-singapore-test-flights/134956.article
The airborne environment is probably easier for an AI to deal with ... tightly controlled and regulated, with no pedestrians, cyclists, or red lights!j
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on January 07, 2020, 11:21:40 AM
I think all the hype over AV has quietly been shut down as engineers realise the limitations of what they can actually do, which turns out to be 'not much'
We will see how the autonomous buses get on driving into Edinburgh, from Fife. One of the busiest routes into the capitol. I hate driving it.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on January 07, 2020, 02:18:42 PM
Maybe the emphasis is shifting to “driver assistance” rather than “driver replacement”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51015921
My concern is that creates "driver complacency" which is the cause of all those Tesla Autopilot accidents.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on January 07, 2020, 04:18:12 PM
Maybe the emphasis is shifting to “driver assistance” rather than “driver replacement”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51015921
My concern is that creates "driver complacency" which is the cause of all those Tesla Autopilot accidents.

Spot on - we have seen in the last few years that the more 'driver aids' makers fit the less attention people pay to driving... they start to expect for the car to do everything for them ( who is going to be the first car make to fit a toilet roll holder  :o ) and save their sorry 4r5e when they get into a situation through brain dead driving..
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: sparky Paul on January 07, 2020, 04:31:09 PM
Maybe the emphasis is shifting to “driver assistance” rather than “driver replacement”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51015921

It's not fair, I was looking forward to getting my feet up and having a snooze.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on February 07, 2020, 11:43:44 AM
A company has been given a licence to start testing an autonomous delivery van with no human controls what so ever. It will start testing in Houston, Texas. The relaxation in the rules is because it has a top speed of 25 mph.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51409031 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51409031)

And Uber is to restart testing of autonomous cars in Californian again.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/05/uber-california-self-driving-vehicles (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/05/uber-california-self-driving-vehicles)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on February 10, 2020, 10:33:25 AM
Wasn't sure if this belonged in Electric Vehicles or Autonomous Vehicles. but since it didn't say anything about doing the trip on one charge, I went for this thread. Most of the article is behind the Times paywall but you can get the gist from what you can see here for free.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/record-british-road-trip-in-a-driverless-car-j6vn9bh7k

There's not much room for you in the car though if you have to have all that equipment and three Nissan techies in the car at the same time!  ;D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on February 10, 2020, 10:52:35 AM
The Guardian doesn't have a paywall.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/05/nissan-self-driving-car-leaf-longest-journey (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/05/nissan-self-driving-car-leaf-longest-journey)

There were two engineers in the car and a human driver took over when they stopped four times for checks and charging.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on February 10, 2020, 10:58:38 AM
The Guardian doesn't have a paywall.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/05/nissan-self-driving-car-leaf-longest-journey (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/05/nissan-self-driving-car-leaf-longest-journey)

There were two engineers in the car and a human driver took over when they stopped four times for checks and charging.

Yeah I voluntarily pay for the Guardian and went to look for the story there but got distracted by a review of a Google smart speaker! In the Times story the text says two techies but the picture shows three people, lol.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on February 10, 2020, 02:18:53 PM
In the Times story the text says two techies but the picture shows three people, lol.
Two techies and a driver?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 09, 2020, 09:37:03 PM
Will coronavirus tip the balance? May do in China. And like Covid-19, first China then the world.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52392366 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52392366)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on August 19, 2020, 10:12:21 PM
The government is looking at making "Hands-free driving" legal, here in the UK from next spring.
The like of Tesla Autopilot, which features automated lane-keeping systems will be permitted.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders claims it could cut accidents. ALKS technology has been approved by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), of which the UK is a member. It set rules to allow the system in motorway traffic jams, at speeds of up to 37mph. The technology, however, could be given the go-ahead for speeds of up to 70mph in the UK, according to the DfT, potentially making long stretches of tedious motorway driving a thing of the past.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53830947 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53830947)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on August 20, 2020, 09:22:54 AM
he technology, however, could be given the go-ahead for speeds of up to 70mph in the UK, according to the DfT, potentially making long stretches of tedious motorway driving a thing of the past.

You mean that people who pay little attention now will be able to pay no attention at all  :o  Look out for a steep rise in Teslas hitting fire trucks...

Also idiots climbing into the back seat for a sleep while travelling on the motorway, putting their 5 year old in the drivers seat for a photo or video  for youtube ' 5 year old driving at 90mph goes viral'  -- human idiocy knows no bounds.   And pretty soon ebay will be selling devices to defeat the safety that car makers install to make sure 'driver' ( LOL ) has to push a button every so often, keep hands on steering wheels sensors etc.

I assume the auto systems will be able to read the 'no lane markings for 5 miles' signs and turn the autopilot off,  Tesla crashes have been caused by the fact that one of white lines disappeared - some cars when they didn't detect a white line just kept going across the highway and hit the central barrier at high speed --- there is going to have to be a step-change in road maintenance before they can think about using road markings to guide vehicles..
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on August 20, 2020, 09:38:39 AM
I assume it now means I can be drunk and not in charge of the vehicle when autopilot is on?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on August 20, 2020, 09:43:42 AM
I assume it now means I can be drunk and not in charge of the vehicle when autopilot is on?

Yeah that will open an entirely new can of legal worms...   'i was in the back seat when the car hit the crash barrier officer'
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on August 20, 2020, 09:54:19 AM
I don't know which is harder...

1. Staying alert and in control of your car at all times when on the motorway

2. Becoming instantly alert from a state of distraction when your car decides it is not sure how to handle what is ahead

Actually I do.

I have driven the American highways for many thousands of miles. I know that they can be very long, very straight and very dull, particularly the Interstates. But I also know that you can be doing 70 along a ramrod straight I-something through a featureless prairie and you can see a farm truck considering pulling out from a farm road. What I don't know is how good the AI is at predicting human nature and  reacting when that truck and trailer decides randomly to cross all four lanes to get to the farm road on the other side. I know when it happened to me it was a completely ridiculous manouvre, but I also know I guessed it might happen and allowed for it. Does AI guess or predict from an algorithm?

I also have driven the I-15 from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Ramrod straight, two lanes in each direction and relatively featureless. Heading from Las Vegas to Los Angeles I would estimate every third driver to be unsafe due to either alcohol, having been gambling for 24 hours straight or other reasons. I have never been so scared and on edge in my life as on that journey with all my family in the car with me. It is the nearest I have ever been to being in a multi car pile up. A car in front of me braked so hard the car behind it swerved completely into the mercilfuly wide gap between the carriageways and performed a graceful pirouette before pulling back on about five cars behind me and continuing on it's way.

American highways and Interstates are not at all like our M and A roads.

What I do know is roads will only be safe when ONLY AI is in charge of all vehicles.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on August 20, 2020, 10:18:07 AM
Be interesting to see the legal battles when car makers rather than drivers are blamed for crashes - this really blurs the line about who is in charge of the vehicle,  the driver or the electronics.  The thing computers lack is the anticipation that humans have based on previous experiences,  and the ability to pick out shapes amongst any amount of background clutter, and the ability to interpret the way a vehicle is being driven what it is likely to do next.... This could be really interesting.    Tests have shown that the ability of a distracted human who is sure the computer is running things to assess a situation and regain control takes far too long to avoid pretty much anything.  Is an auto system going to recognise the front of a vehicle sticking out from a side turning and prepare for it to pull out the way Richard Frost did - or will it just see it as an inanimate part of the scenery and not a threat at all ?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on August 20, 2020, 10:53:57 AM
The new legislation will avoid the need for the driver to hold the wheel or press a button every few seconds. The insurance companies are looking to hold the car and ultimately the manufacturer responsible for damages so that may put an end to such technology being fitted to cars. It will also be used on 44 ton trucks!
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: John Ratsey on August 22, 2020, 09:26:59 PM
I wouldn't want to be in the vicinity when the unexpected happens. What will the autonomous vehicle do if confronted by a vehicle coming in the wrong direction on a motorway? As noted above, things might work when everything is driverless which should eliminate that particular problem but there are still hazards such as a wheel coming off a moving lorry.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on August 22, 2020, 10:02:14 PM
What will the autonomous vehicle do if confronted by a vehicle coming in the wrong direction on a motorway?
Probably the same as I would do. Sh*t itself.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on August 23, 2020, 08:43:54 AM
I wouldn't want to be in the vicinity when the unexpected happens. What will the autonomous vehicle do if confronted by a vehicle coming in the wrong direction on a motorway? As noted above, things might work when everything is driverless which should eliminate that particular problem but there are still hazards such as a wheel coming off a moving lorry.

How about if your AV gets the dreaded blue screen while moving and had to be re-booted - also what if microsoft decides to send you updates while on the M25 and forces a reboot ? I hope AV will run on Linux like most of the other things that need to be reliable and bug free.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on August 25, 2020, 01:31:23 PM
Read a funny comment the other day, 'we can't trust computers to get exam results right but happy to trust them to drive tons of metal at high speed on our roads'......
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on August 25, 2020, 09:23:56 PM
The computer didn't get the exam results wrong. The UK governments, who set the criteria for exam results, got it wrong. The computers just did the sums they were told to do.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on September 02, 2020, 01:10:19 PM
OOPS..

"Tesla driver on 'autopilot' crashes into police car while watching film"

https://news.sky.com/story/tesla-driver-on-autopilot-crashes-into-police-car-while-watching-film-12058830
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: John Ratsey on September 02, 2020, 03:29:08 PM
OOPS..

"Tesla driver on 'autopilot' crashes into police car while watching film"

https://news.sky.com/story/tesla-driver-on-autopilot-crashes-into-police-car-while-watching-film-12058830
I'm surprised that the car didn't stop - perhaps it was also watching the film?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on September 02, 2020, 05:01:10 PM
I'm surprised that the car didn't stop - perhaps it was also watching the film?

The 'driver' LOL is in trouble anyway,  as should Tesla be as well for selling the 'autopilot' when it is nothing of the sort ( just maybe a glorified cruise control ) ... imagine if the car had killed all those police ...

It is worrying that people take liberties with tech and it leads to massive inattention - Tesla should recall cars and disable the autopilot feature which has been implicated in a few collisions.  I would not like to trust the doctor who was driving with anything more than an ingrowing toenail.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on September 02, 2020, 06:09:25 PM
Earlier in the summer, a German court ruled that Tesla was exaggerating their claims and that "Autopilot" created the false impression that the car can drive itself.
The manual for Tesla Autopilot clearly states what it can and can't do and that the driver must be in control of the vehicle at all times. Driver deaths in these cars are just natural selection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on September 02, 2020, 06:32:06 PM
Earlier in the summer, a German court ruled that Tesla was exaggerating their claims and that "Autopilot" created the false impression that the car can drive itself.
The manual for Tesla Autopilot clearly states what it can and can't do and that the driver must be in control of the vehicle at all times. Driver deaths in these cars are just natural selection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html)

Funny to hear musk bulling up their autopilot when it has been involved in quite a few collisions, what happened to the requirement to keep hands on the steering wheel ( which a five year old could bypass with a $5 eBay device....the system so obviously not fit for purpose... ( and anyway Germans want to get their own back for dieselgate ).
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: madasafish on September 02, 2020, 08:23:21 PM
Earlier in the summer, a German court ruled that Tesla was exaggerating their claims and that "Autopilot" created the false impression that the car can drive itself.
The manual for Tesla Autopilot clearly states what it can and can't do and that the driver must be in control of the vehicle at all times. Driver deaths in these cars are just natural selection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/business/tesla-autopilot-germany.html)

NO - repeat no - or very few - drivers of a new-to-them car are going to read a car manual cover to cover. Usually 500 pages plus.

And if they did read it, what are the chances of them recalling the key bits.

KISS must be the principle - and if a function claims to be one thing in publicity but is different in practise  - then it is potentially fatal..
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on September 03, 2020, 09:40:26 AM
KISS must be the principle - and if a function claims to be one thing in publicity but is different in practise  - then it is potentially fatal..

Eggszackerly  :-X   from the marketing hype it would be easy to think autopilot is autonomous vehicle control,  instead it seems to be a glorified adaptive cruise control that can roughly follow white lines ( but when the lines disappear watch out ) and without auto braking.  Musk spurned the Lidar due to cost and Tesla cars already have more cameras than David Bailey but cameras can only see visible things ( and then only sometimes it seems )..

At the moment Tesla autopilot is probably the same as a 95 year old driver with cataracts ( or maybe Prince Philip ).

Apparently there are 3 levels of reboot on a Tesla,  two official ( soft and hard boot ) where you park the car put brake on and press various combinations of buttons and the third ( unofficial one ) one called 'ludicrous reboot' that some Tesla tech accidentally discovered where you take the cable off the 12volt 'life support' battery for 30 seconds - why did it take Tesla techs so long to discover that,  pretty much every computer will reboot if you take its power away and reconnect it..... Be a good idea to turn the world off and then on again and see if it makes it better...
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on December 08, 2020, 11:38:20 AM
Uber have seen the light and abandoned attempts at fully autonomous vehicles - they have seen that it is a fruitless venture and could only ever be low speed vehicles on closed tracks.... now they are going to let some other company waste billions..


https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22158745/uber-selling-autonomous-vehicle-business-aurora-innovation
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on December 08, 2020, 12:30:25 PM
Mind you; they are investing $400 million in Aurora so they cannot see it as totally fruitless.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on May 13, 2021, 12:48:46 PM
Just started reading an interesting book, "The Passengers", by John Marrs. He was the author of "The One", which recently was turned into a Netflix series. (Netflix has only used the idea and the book was far better).
"The Passengers" deals with self-driving cars. "Eight self-drive cars set on a collision course. Who lives, who dies? You decide."
It has started as a cracking read (£1.99 for Kindle).
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on July 19, 2021, 09:31:17 AM
Thoughtful piece in The Register on the human interface issues - and the legal implications - of Automated Lane Keeping Systems (which may or may not be some form of semi-autonomous driving):
https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/16/automated_lane_keeping_systems_feature/
Excerpt:
"Transport minister Rachel Maclean said that ALKS may improve road safety by reducing "human error", however we have work to do to ensure drivers understand their personal responsibility when operating a vehicle fitted with such advanced driving assistance systems, and that their trust in the system is appropriately calibrated to its capability.
There is not enough evidence that drivers understand the limitations of ALKS, and it is the behaviour of the driver engaging with the system in a manner for which is it was not intended that is likely to lead to problems. "
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on July 19, 2021, 10:02:19 AM
Is that not the issue with most of the Tesla crashes?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: nowster on July 20, 2021, 03:34:52 PM
Is that not the issue with most of the Tesla crashes?

True. The Tesla "autopilot" system is not hugely different to the ACC and LKAS on the current Jazzes, except that Honda have added some things that make it demand driver steering input.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on August 12, 2021, 01:42:19 PM
An astute correspondent to the esteemed Viz magazine makes an excellent point as to why driverless vehicles might not be quite so successful as the manufacturers suggest...

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on August 29, 2021, 01:00:10 PM
Oh dear ...
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-halts-all-self-driving-e-pallete-vehicles-after-olympic-village-accident-2021-08-27/
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: culzean on February 19, 2022, 03:52:08 PM
Ooops, 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-government-investigates-tesla-cars-after-reports-of-unexpected-braking/ar-AAU08Ok
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on February 19, 2022, 04:09:49 PM
Sounds like my ACC  ;D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 25, 2022, 10:38:13 PM
I see they are about to start tests of a full size (single-decker) driverless bus running between Edinburgh and Fife. They hope to be carrying passengers by the summer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-61216302 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-61216302)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on April 26, 2022, 05:10:24 AM
IMO autonomous will end in fatalities. Recent history has proved that. Just takes one sensor failure or reduced coverage due to weather, etc.

Just wait and see I suppose. Will autonomous be able to detect a frail passenger and wait till they are seated.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on January 20, 2023, 08:39:08 PM
That was Stagecoach running its first driverless test, carrying passengers, over the Forth Road Bridge today. The test was successful and they plan to have the driverless bus service running in the spring.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-64350096 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-64350096)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on January 21, 2023, 05:24:55 AM
Very brave passengers, not for me.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: guest9236 on January 21, 2023, 08:01:35 AM
Very brave passengers, not for me.

Not me either especially in an electric vehicle could be a warm journey!,
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on January 21, 2023, 08:17:13 AM
I really don't see the point of this, except as part of a development trial (or a gimmick). The article says:
“When fully operational, each bus will have a driver monitoring the system alongside a bus captain who will help passengers with boarding and buying tickets.”
So it's not really fully autonomous, and they’ve replaced a driver-operated bus with something that requires two staff on board? Difficult to see any economic benefit in that once the government’s financial support runs out. And why do passengers require an additional person to help with boarding and buying tickets, on every other bus in the country that's the driver.
One of the articles linked from the main article suggests that the major benefit is expected to be improved safety ... so do Scottish buses have such a bad safety record that this is a better option rather than, say, improving driver training?
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinS on January 21, 2023, 10:00:11 AM
The best system that I have travelled on is the Las Vegas Monorail.  It opened in 1995 and as far as I know has had no fatalities. https://www.lvmonorail.com/ (https://www.lvmonorail.com/)
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on January 21, 2023, 10:37:09 AM
The London DLR is also driverless. Just has an attendant to close the doors when safe.

The London Underground Victoria Line is also driverless in as much as it's computer controlled, and again, the 'driver' just opens and closes the doors.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on January 21, 2023, 12:22:17 PM
When the full trial is operational. Obviously, at some point in the future, the plan is to do away with the driver and just have a conductor or conductress doing the tickets.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: ColinB on January 21, 2023, 01:19:38 PM
When the full trial is operational. Obviously, at some point in the future, the plan is to do away with the driver and just have a conductor or conductress doing the tickets.

This particular run seems to have been a trial (or pilot, or test). But the story clearly says that when it is "fully operational" (ie the trial phase is complete) it will be two-person operated. Removing the driver completely requires a change in the law which might happen eventually, but probably not before the subsidy funding for this particular operation runs out.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on January 21, 2023, 02:46:23 PM
When it goes into operation in the spring that is still trialling the system. As you say, until the law is changed it will not be fully operational and I cannot see that in my lifetime. I drove for Stagecoach out of the depot involved and speaking to the people involved, the capacity of 10,000 per week is ridiculed. Yes, they could take that but it is a route with little demand but a simple road system.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Jocko on April 14, 2023, 01:39:02 PM
So that is the Ford BlueCruise Level 2 technology approved for use on 2,300 miles (95%) of motorways in the UK. It is currently only available in the 2023 Ford electric Mustang Mach-E SUV and is available on a monthly subscription of £17.99. If you are involved in an accident the driver is still responsible as it is not autonomous driving, only hands-free. It basically just keeps you in your lane, maintaining a set speed and distance from the vehicle in front. It uses a system of cameras and sensors. It has been in use in the US and Canada since 2021 but is only now available (and legal) in the UK.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on April 14, 2023, 02:45:55 PM
If I see one of those on the M4 I'll give it a wide berth
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: SouthernExile on May 08, 2023, 12:03:36 PM
There's an interesting and maybe amusing article about the more mundane day-to-day effects of autonomous vehicles in city traffic at:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/05/08/driverless-cars-crawl-the-streets-in-san-francisco-what-to-know/11762370002/

Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Lord Voltermore on May 08, 2023, 02:54:21 PM
It is currently only available in the 2023 Ford electric Mustang Mach-E SUV and is available on a monthly subscription of £17.99. If you are involved in an accident the driver is still responsible as it is not autonomous driving, only hands-free. It basically just keeps you in your lane, maintaining a set speed and distance from the vehicle in front. It uses a system of cameras and sensors. It has been in use in the US and Canada since 2021 but is only now available (and legal) in the UK.
£17.99 a month for what is basically ACC and lane keeping assistance , plus the ability to do without that   convenient hand rest known as a steering wheel?  Why? Will being able to rest your hands in your lap make it that much more comfortable.  Surely you wouldnt be doing other stuff like texting ,or eating lunch with a  knife and fork ?

The mk4 lets you do it for a few seconds  for free before objecting . Enough to know its not worth £215  a year and the increased chance of not being alert or even falling asleep.

I wonder if one day there will be three grades of  driving test and driving licence .  Manual, automatic, and 'supervisor of a self driving car'    I'm not sure  those of us who passed their test many years ago in a manual car  would necessarily be experts in self driving car supervision.  But better than a gismo baby licence holder trying to drive a 'proper' car.. 
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on May 08, 2023, 02:56:53 PM
What happens if your subscription runs out when your asleep at the wheel on the motorway  ;D
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Lord Voltermore on May 08, 2023, 03:17:32 PM
What happens if your subscription runs out when your asleep at the wheel on the motorway  ;D
Or if your subscription runs out and they send a message to the car cancelling the function, while you are using it? 
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: richardfrost on May 09, 2023, 08:26:33 AM
Same joke.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Lord Voltermore on May 09, 2023, 03:29:09 PM
Sorry   :-[  But mine was longer.  ;D  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Title: Re: Autonomous vehicles.
Post by: Kremmen on May 09, 2023, 03:56:14 PM
 :D