"Self-Driving Cars Are Starting to Look Like a $100 Billion Bust" (vehicles, traction)
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A nice audio-format story about the self-driving car push - both the marketing/hype push, as well as the engineering/science push. I spent over a decade working on AI myself, and I think we'll get there - in time - but there is no denying that companies in the business greatly overstate what they can do today, and where they'll be next year. And it's not just Elon Musk who talks s---.
I work in this industry (which is funny, considering that I personally am not interested in owning an autonomous vehicle) and this is basically true; achieving full autonomy is more complex than what was initially thought. I’m sure it will happen someday, but we’re far from that.
I work in this industry (which is funny, considering that I personally am not interested in owning an autonomous vehicle) and this is basically true; achieving full autonomy is more complex than what was initially thought. I’m sure it will happen someday, but we’re far from that.
The CA high speed rail ($113 billion in 2022) must be fully electric and capable of a sustained operating speed of no less than 200 miles per hour. But the average speeds will obviously be considerably lower.
I should think that autonomous EV lanes from LA to SFO where speeds of 100 mph are possible would benefit the economy nearly as much as a high speed rail. The cost should be a small percentage of $113 billion. A Nissan LEAF can only achiever 89 mph, but most EVs go faster than that.
I work in this industry (which is funny, considering that I personally am not interested in owning an autonomous vehicle) and this is basically true; achieving full autonomy is more complex than what was initially thought. I’m sure it will happen someday, but we’re far from that.
I like the part when they said "One of the industry's maxims is that human beings are terrible drivers, but it's not even close to true... humans are really really good drivers". Yes they are. We can of course argue about what constitutes a "judgement", but it's a useful construct for discussion... lets say that a human being makes 100 judgements per mile, on average, and drives 15,000 miles per year. That's 1,500,000 judgements, and they are typically, all correct, or at least, correct enough to avoid an accident and to bring the occupants safely to their destination. And if something unusual is seen, or occurs, all bets are off as to what the computer is going to do, but the human being, with their intellect and their enormous knowledge base about the world, is bound to do something that's reasonable. The app has an *extremely* limited model of the world, and outside of that model, no context to judge what's reasonable.
The accuracy, and the broad range of applicability, in all manner of lighting conditions and weather impairing visibility and reducing traction, with all kinds of potential hazards appearing on the road - including uncommon ones, unpredictable actions by others, complicated roadways and traffic dynamics - it's asking an awful lot for the computer and sensors to navigate all that as well as a human.
I have to say though - it seems like a challenging and fun problem to work on! :-)
Recent testing in San Francisco indicates that the regular occurrence of heavy fog in that city causes the self driving cars to lose visibility and they go park at the curb. Story in WaPo today.
Excerpt:
"SAN FRANCISCO — When the dense, iconic fog rolled in over the residential neighborhood of Balboa Terrace on a recent Tuesday, five matching white SUVs covered in cameras ground to a halt.
Confused by the drop in visibility, the Google-owned electric Jaguar I-PACEs tried to pull over and wait out the weather — creating a brief traffic jam. But there was no one inside to yell at. The cars were empty autonomous cars run by software.... While the vehicles have been tested here since 2018, they’ve more recently been allowed to drive around on roads during the daytime without safety drivers — people who are paid to be on standby in the driver’s seat in case something goes wrong. Waymo started one year ago, Cruise at the end of 2021, though they’ve been steadily increasing the numbers. That’s led to an uptick in incidents, residents say, from harmless traffic jams to accidents such as the rear-ending of a public bus."
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The CA high speed rail ($113 billion in 2022) must be fully electric and capable of a sustained operating speed of no less than 200 miles per hour. But the average speeds will obviously be considerably lower.
I should think that autonomous EV lanes from LA to SFO where speeds of 100 mph are possible would benefit the economy nearly as much as a high speed rail. The cost should be a small percentage of $113 billion. A Nissan LEAF can only achiever 89 mph, but most EVs go faster than that.
It's almost 400 miles from LA to San Francisco. Not many EVs can go that far without recharging.
In 2016, Elon Musk describing the 'summon' function in his vehicles: "When you want your car to return, tap Summon on your phone. It will eventually find you even if you are on the other side of the country". It's already 7 years later - I wonder how many Tesla owners have summoned their cars successfully from across the country? Musk also claimed that same year that Tesla owners would be raking in big cash from hiring out their personal vehicles as 'robotaxis' soon. With over 280,000 systems sold, I imagine Elon Musk has separated his customers from several billion dollars of their hard-earned money with his pitch for Full Self-Driving. I wonder how many billions the owners have made from the robotaxi function on their vehicles so far?
These systems *are* getting better, including Tesla's. But most of them, and certainly Tesla's, are oversold by their makers.
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 04-24-2023 at 06:29 PM..
He flaps daily, but that doesn’t take away from the actual current functionality of the system. When updates come, they don’t have Elon Musk quotes attached. The update report lists what the new updates entail and by my observations, it functions properly according to those explanations.
Last time we argued this topic you ignored everything I said because it comes from personal experience that directly refutes your view that the system does not work. It’s certainly not perfect, but it works as currently designed and has improved immensely over the 7 or so months I’ve had access to it.
A recent update has it changing lanes completely autonomously on the highway. It’s kind of freaky and takes getting used to. The prior version required my acknowledgment to change lanes. It’s still too cautious on the surface streets for my liking. I rarely use it off highway for that reason.
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