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The largest of the three Benelux states – the other being Belgium and Luxembourg – is the clear leader in KPMG’s ‘Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index’. It is within the top four of each of the four pillars and ranked number one on infrastructure, most likely due to its heavily-used and well-maintained road network – rated as one of the world’s best by the World Economic Forum and the World Bank. Holland also has by far the highest density of electrical vehicle charging points, with 26,789 publicly-available points in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook — more than Japan has for a road network over eight times the length.
So it's not just seeing the road and not, when it snows. AVs also guide themselves based on internet and GPS. You simply have to be developed enough to provide that.
The largest of the three Benelux states – the other being Belgium and Luxembourg – is the clear leader in KPMG’s ‘Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index’. It is within the top four of each of the four pillars and ranked number one on infrastructure, most likely due to its heavily-used and well-maintained road network – rated as one of the world’s best by the World Economic Forum and the World Bank. Holland also has by far the highest density of electrical vehicle charging points, with 26,789 publicly-available points in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook — more than Japan has for a road network over eight times the length.
And another clueless post can't distinguish between AVs and EVs.
Half of the streets in my town have no lines or curbs, and after a heavy downpour many intersections may be covered with up to 6” of water. I just don’t see how an AV would handle that.
Half of the streets in my town have no lines or curbs, and after a heavy downpour many intersections may be covered with up to 6” of water. I just don’t see how an AV would handle that.
It can't. AV's may have limited use in some areas some day, but catching up on your sleep on the way to work is probably not in the cards.
I can actually envision a way that AV trucks could be used, but it doesn't entail making deliveries to customers. And it doesn't entail leaving the prescribed route, either. Like I say - useful, but limited.
Whenever I drive through a certain construction zone around here, I am reminded how poor of a job they do temporarily re-striping lanes. You can see the old lines and the new lines. I often think that AV cars would be crashing into each other here.
None of this is much new; I've been saying several of these things for quite a while. (Mostly that AV operation on "Disneyland" streets is one thing; operation on more rural roads without lines, curb lines or markers, and with irregular curves and intersections, etc. pose problems that have choked the vehicles in city conditions.)
But there's another issue that's only been touched on - I just saw a related piece about it and it made me think.
Repairing AVs is going to be completely beyond 95% of existing service options, even limiting that to dealerships and factory-trained shops, much less driveway repairs. Yes, yes, I know, every slight technical advance in automotive design has sparked the same comment, but this time really is different. I've been working on cars since the most sophisticated thing in them was an AM radio, and things like FI, engine computers, airbags, ABS and the endlessly multiplying controllers have each been said to put the amateur/general mechanic out of business. To make it short, every one of those systems is just an extension of older tech, and thus completely within the grasp of any experienced mechanic if he or she chooses... and repair on most of those systems consists of testing and replacing some black boxes.
But AVs use a sensor array, supercomputer and control linkages that are so state of the art in their own fields that those experts still can't get them right. Repair of an AV will involve tools, techniques and knowledge that are in no way just one more ASE badge away.
And, frankly, do you want YOUR neighbor "fixing" his AV's wonky forward sensors before his morning commute?
The more common model is AV that are not privately owned. You punch into your cell phone where you want to go and when you want to leave and the AV comes and picks you up at that time and takes you to your destination. It is a transportation concept different form what we are accustomed to having. If they do it this way, it will take some adjustment.
In response to one post about them crashing into each other: At least some of them talk to each other. Conceptually, each car will know where every other car around it is and what it is doing. Crashes will be far fewer than with human texters piloting the vehicles. It is a good idea. As much as I love driving, I dislike bleeding more. Since the advent of the cell phone obsession, it is really dangerous to drive anymore, and it appears that is not going to change. Making use of cell phones while driving is not going change the behavior of addicts.
Whenever I drive through a certain construction zone around here, I am reminded how poor of a job they do temporarily re-striping lanes. You can see the old lines and the new lines. I often think that AV cars would be crashing into each other here.
We had a google team come into one of our gas stations about a year ago, they were mapping for the transition to self drive, the way they explained it, the technology was going to be like a very accurate and updated GPS, the mapping equipment on their cars was recording everything about the roads they were driving on, even grade, slope, every square of inch of every road is to be mapped.
They said the transition would be a HUGE deal, and car companies will team up with tech and computer companies, (kind of like 'new for 2023...the Chevy/Google Silverado')
The day when I need a car to get me from point a to point b, without me being in control, will be the day I tell them to just cover me up with some dirt. This is all to George Jetsonish for me.
I've said it before...More like autopilot on a large pleasure boat. If I had that, I could drop the boat in at the ramp, program a GPS coordinate 7 miles away in the ocean, and the boat would navigate the intercoastal waterway through a couple channels out past the jetty into the ocean and take me to my spot.
However, I couldn't take it from a dock on a skinny creek channel in a no-wake zone with the tide ripping out through Oregon Inlet on a windy day. The wind and shifting bottom would make it nearly impossible.
Similarly, I foresee being able to plug in a destination on Monday morning and have it take me there...If everything goes correctly.
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