Myth: Self driving vehicles will not work well in rain or snow.
Reality: Vehicles operate perfectly well in snow.
Some of my readers fabricate stories about why driverless cars will not work. Others make claims that are easily disputed by a simple check.
Let’s take a look at some reader comments and my replies. I do so in form of an article because it it tiring to reply to the same kinds of arguments over and over again in comments to posts.
Let’s also take a look beyond the 2022-2024 time frame. Issues like insurance, batteries, gasoline, and even car ownership come into play. How soon?
Myth and Fantasy Scenarios
In response to Ford Targets 2021 for Mass-Market Self-Driving Car: 2021 a Near Certainty, reader “alexaisback” commented …
Mish is again mishing many points. I have corrected him before I will do so again briefly.
A. As of this date regardless of manufacturer, No vehicle can drive in heavy rain or snow. None. Zero. And NONE have any idea how to do so, in fact few if any have attempted it.
B. In order to do so, in the future, the roadway and highway will require multiple signs and demarcations, in order for the computer to orient itself. Significant investment would have to be made in roads.
This in and of itself will require enormous government subsidy ( State Fed and Local)
something the ” trucking ” industry simply does not have the political weight for.
What the Trucking Unions will roll over and allow the Fed Gov to subsidy them out of business ?C. The moral programming will hit a brick wall.
What happens when the computer determines:
An accident is about to happen – A school bus is coming at me –
i. If I turn right to avoid the accident and onto the sidewalk I kill a pedestrian.
ii. If I turn left to avoid the accident I kill a bicycle rider.
No One has determined how to program for morality.
Reality
Dateline January 11, 2016: Wired reports The Clever Way Ford’s Self-Driving Cars Navigate in Snow.
Humans typically make their best guess, based on visible markers like curbs and other cars. Ford says it is teaching its autonomous cars to do something similar.
Like other players in this space, Ford is creating high-fidelity, 3D maps of the roads its autonomous cars will travel. Those maps include details like the exact position of the curbs and lane lines, trees and signs, along with local speed limits and other relevant rules. The more a car knows about an area, the more it can focus its sensors and computing power on detecting temporary obstacles—like people and other vehicles—in real time.
Those maps have another advantage: The car can use them to figure out, within a centimeter, where it is at any given moment. Say the car can’t see the lane lines, but it can see a nearby stop sign, which is on the map. Its LIDAR scanner tells it exactly how far it is from the sign. Then, it’s a quick jump to knowing how far it is from the lane lines.
“We’re able to drive perfectly well in snow,” says Jim McBride, Ford’s head of autonomous research. “We see everything above the ground plane, which we match to our map, and our map contains the information about where all the lanes are and all the rules of the road.” Problem solved.
Ford says it tested this ability in real snow last month at Mcity, the fake town built for self-driving vehicles. This idea of self-locating by deduction itself may not be unique to Ford, but the automaker’s the first one to publicly show it can use its maps to navigate on snow-covered roads.
This doesn’t mean all the problems with autonomous driving in bad weather are solved. Falling rain and snow can interfere with LIDAR and cameras, and safely driving requires more than knowing where you are on a map—you also need to be able to see those temporary obstacles. You know, like other people. But still, it’s nice to see one more challenge resolved as we move closer to the day when “driving” is something you save for the golf course.
Purposely Snarky Reply
Points A and B by “alexaisback” are clearly false.
Point C is is simply ridiculous. What about meteors? 80-year old women on roller skates? Mercy! Please be serious with Luddite fantasies, otherwise morality will have us going back to horses.
At the risk of being too snarky (because I am fed up with fallacies posted as facts), please do a little research before posting total nonsense about what can and cannot be done.
Driverless vehicles are coming. Period. 2021 is a reasonable time-frame for cars (not necessarily widespread adoption). Long haul trucks on highways will likely be first.
My own target for mass deployment (eliminating millions of long-haul trucking jobs) is a “pessimistic” 2022-2024.
3-D mapping of expressways will not take long. Competition ensures technology will improve rapidly.
On expressways, worries about little old women on roller skates, with dogs and cats running around, while a driver of a school load of bus kids heads straight for a truck, as a child on a bicycle decides to cross the street will not come into play.
Theft Once Again
Reader “Yasda” comments …
Hacking these things (self driving trucks) will be hilarious. I can think of at least a dozen exploits without even trying. But the most basic one is forcing them off the road to steal their contents. Doesn’t even require any tech.
No driver, so wrecking the truck has no consequences beyond the theft itself. These things will be easy prey on any lonely highway across the country. Some will do it just for the fun on it, others for the profit. Either way, the losses will be enormous.
Every time I write about driverless technology, the issue of theft comes up in a comment, and I take time to reply to the comment, to point out the silliness of it all.
Let’s put this in a post so I can easily refer back to it.
Trucks will be more secure. Doors will lock. If the door opens when it’s not supposed to, someone will be notified. If the truck is not where it is supposed to be someone, including the police with be notified.
The idea that someone can break into a truck, unload it, or steal it and get very far is patently absurd. Yet, invariably someone brings this up with every discussion.
Common Sense Reply
Reader Dean analyzes the situation correctly …
Evidenced by many of these comments, people continue to fear technology and resist change. There will be risk of auto accidents with self-driving cars. There will be people who die as a result of buggy software. As the technology rolls out and those bugs are minimized the rates of accidents and fatalities will diminish. Compared to human drivers the rate of fatalities should be much lower, probably dramatically.
What people fail to see is that money is what will drive the progress. Large companies can either save money by using vehicles without drivers or make money by selling these vehicles. These large companies will push legislation and control the politicians. Like it or not the technology will arrive and grow quickly.
All this talk about Tesla is nonsense. They pushed out software before it was ready. Eventually, a company had to be on the bleeding edge of this technology. Tesla will work out the bugs and continue to push on. That’s how technology advances.
I still remember so many people that feared the microwave oven but the majority embraced the technology. Yes, there are still those who resist using a microwave oven but my point is that technology will continue to push forward while a small percentage resist. It took a while for people to use bank ATMs yet it became second nature. There are still some that refuse to use an ATM but that does not mean banks will cater to the minority. Banks, along with most business, stand to increase profits with automation.
Fear of Change
Reader Dean touches on an important concept: Fear of change.
Many will not want to give up driving their cars. But others, especially those with night vision issues will welcome the idea.
This is 2016. The year 2022 is a long way off. Technology is advancing amazing fast. It’s fearful so people doubt it will happen.
Yet, there is an enormous incentive to get rid of paid truck drivers who can only operate 10 or so hours a day, when driverless truck can go non-stop.
Regulations are behind, but they will catch up. Competition in this space is intense. Competition guarantees success, sooner rather than later.
Accident rates for driverless vehicles will drop. Snow-related accidents for driverless vehicles will plunge. The issue of “chains” came up a couple times. Services will exist to put on chains if required.
Looking Further Ahead
One reader commented I was overly obsessed with this topic. Actually, I am simply looking ahead to the possibilities.
Driverless technology is the next major disruptive change, with enormous implications across a number of industries.
As the technology improves and the early adopters come on, others will follow. Then, as adoption progresses, insurance costs will drop for driverless vehicles and soar for cars with steering wheels.
At some point, there will be a huge switch to driverless vehicles. But will people own them or rent them on demand?
Millions of city-livers will question the reason to have a car at all!
On-demand rentals will take hold. Uber, Lyft, and competitors will take over. Along with long-haul truck drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers will vanish as well. The cars will not even have steering wheels.
Neither car insurance companies nor car manufacturers nor traditional car rental companies will look like they do today. Demand for gasoline will drop as battery technology finally takes hold.
Some of these scenarios will not happen en masse by 2022. However, the stage is set for major disruption to start no later than that date.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Thomas – some of your posts went into moderation automatically because of excessive links. A WordPress automatic feature.
How does this vehicle work when satellite coverage fails and the gps goes out? Answer. They fail.
Think about alternatives
Multiple systems
They would all have to fail
we already have systems in place on Cell Phone navigation that uses many other systems including, Cell phone towers, and Wi-FI (Google) to deal with the loss of GPS signal. Which happens in tunnels, and as you get further North, where it is harder to “see” the Satellites. If we add Lidar, Radar, Vision systems, and preloaded 3D maps The system will be able to handle the loss of GPS with no problem.
Nonsense. Enough ‘intelligence’ and position data can be built into the vehicle computer that it will know the road ahead far enough to pull over and wait until connections are re-established. This is not a failure of the self-driving car, it is a failure of GPS.
If the vehicle depends on GPS and the GPS goes out, obviously, it will not continue on to it’s destination. This is no different from any other failure scenario – from bridges collapsing, heavy fog or an EMP. No technology will answer every scenario – not even people. Just check youtube for videos of drivers caught off-guard in failure scenarios.
The reality is, that in a large number of failure scenarios, self-driving technology will out-perform human drivers because the cars have better sensors and can react faster to threats.
Further, the sensors, which are critical to vehicle functionality, have no reliance on GPS or wireless positioning at all. They are independent and will continue to function regardless.
When GPS fails, only the most poorly designed cars will veer off the road and crash. The rest (those build by companies who intend to avoid law suits and stay in business) will safely pull over, inform the passenger and wait patiently to reconnect.
Wish, I agree with you that eventually the important technical problems will be solved. I also reiterate, as someone who worked for a Fortune 100 corporation, that corporate press releases are often misleading, and loaded with hopium..
My Subaru has Eyesight. It works nicely, except in heavy rain or when the windshield is dirty or in bright sunlight. An occasional very steep hill in front also conflicts with it. It also hits the brakes at intersections for me if it thinks I’m about to rear end someone … generally that person has already turned left or right and is not in the way but Eyesight hasn’t figured it out yet. To the good I absolutely love adaptive cruise control.
My GPS is also a little out of date as I keep forgetting to download the 2GB maps both need. They both still think Wisconsin is 65 mph on the interstates. The road construction in LaCross over the Mississippi is an on and off again 1 lane mess. Be in the wrong lane at the wrong moment and you exit and then need a GPS to find your way back on the road in the right direction. Even run of the mill interstate construction, when lanes can change nightly and not consistently confuses human drivers.
Seriously, in the future, will these not be problems? Or is there just faith in the future in your bones?
You were an IT pro years ago. I am very current with networking practices. I wrote an on-line book on them. People read it daily. One topic in it is a #1 in the world reference in spite of the fact only hundreds of people read it daily, not as many as read your blog. Google that topic and my article is excerpted at the top of page 1 by Google. Not kidding. 10 years is still hoo doo. Maybe 20 if the dirt and sunlight and road construction problems can be figured out.
Wondering why MishTalk attracts so many Luddites? This issue has to be some sort of bellwether. Deep-seated fear of transhumanism?
I cannot figure this out either. Rather amazing. And they cannot remotely get their facts straight.
I suspect my readers are very independent and like to speed (like me). They do not want to turn driving over to a robot (so they fabricate reasons why it will not happen).
I went through something similar with autofocus cameras. As a landscape photographer, I hardly ever use it still, but for most, autofocus was a godsend.
30 years of driving has made me road-weary. I will gladly trade driving for perpetual passengerhood and the 50,000 lives saved annually, even the lives of Luddites and their children.
The inevitability of this is so OBVIOUS. Mish, do you think there will be a gold rush into this technology, any angles to play in this?
‘A Lot of Hype’
“There’s been a lot of hype in the media and in the public mind’s eye” about the technology for self-driving cars “being nearly solved,” said Ryan Eustice, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Michigan who is working with Ford on snow testing.
“But a car that’s able to do nationwide, all-weather driving, under all conditions, that’s still the Holy Grail.”
Did you get that Mish, February 10, 2016 FORD ENGINEER Ryan Eustice.
Or this ?
Jim McBride, technical leader for autonomous vehicles at Ford.
” McBride said Ford’s cars have driven through several millimeters of rain on the road. He wouldn’t say what depth of snow the cars have successfully navigated. ”
Do you know how much a millimeter is ? = .039 inch
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You see these are not negative comments, these are comments made
to attempt to help the author understand the issues.
FORD claims to be able to drive in “several millimeters of rain ” on the road ”
that is .2 inch and ” on the road ” not – not – heavy rain fall.
And FORD REFUSES to state what depth of snow – on their perfectly engineered
track with perfect lines and signage, with 3D engineering ( that none of the rest
of the US has ).
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The Holy Grail. So yes possible, but There Is Alot Of Hype.
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. In my post below I provide the link but there are plenty of them.
here is one from fortune magazine February 2016
http://fortune.com/2016/02/10/self-driving-cars-snow/
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Another thought…If driverless vehicles work, they will largely destroy the auto manufacturers…http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-16/ford-announces-plans-self-destruct-starting-2021
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Amazing arrogance and issue with reading comprehension.
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Your own article reports:
” Falling rain and snow can interfere with LIDAR and cameras, and safely driving requires more than knowing where you are on a map—you also need to be able to see those temporary obstacles. ”
That is the issue – and if you read more articles and research they will tell you snow and heavy rain is a problem. They cannot safely drive in those conditions. Every Car Manufacturer Reports The Same.
So Points A & B are absolute fact. Unable to be refuted.
Furthermore, They are testing on a created track where all the features are perfect, try taking it on a country road with no or faded lines. Try driving on a dirt road where there are no markings ( dirt roads are very common where I live ). .
This is why government subsidy will be necessary in signage and demarcation.
At the minimum Government approval State Local and Fed for installation of signs
and demarcation.
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. Jim McBride, technical leader for autonomous vehicles at Ford.
” McBride said Ford’s cars have driven through several millimeters of rain on the road. He wouldn’t say what depth of snow the cars have successfully navigated. ”
Do you know how much a millimeter is ? = .039 inch
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.SO FORD reports they can drive through several millimeters ” of rain on the road ” which is .2 INCH – ON The Road not heavy rain fall.
They cannot drive in heavy rain.
FORD refuses to report on snow fall. We can only believe it is because they CANNOT DRIVE in Heavy Snow Fall and probably even light snow fall – on their perfectly created and demarked track.
Mish I have followed the electronic car industry for years believe me it is all rubbish, thats what they do, tell rubbish and try for Government Subsidy.
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‘A Lot of Hype’
“There’s been a lot of hype in the media and in the public mind’s eye” about the technology for self-driving cars “being nearly solved,” said Ryan Eustice, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Michigan who is working with Ford on snow testing.
“But a car that’s able to do nationwide, all-weather driving, under all conditions, that’s still the Holy Grail.”
The struggle to cure snow blindness is among a number of engineering problems still to be resolved, including training cars not to drive too timidly, causing humans to crash into them, and ethical dilemmas such as whether to hit a school bus or go over a cliff when an accident is unavoidable.
With about 70 percent of the U.S. population living in the snow belt, learning how to navigate in rough weather is crucial for driverless cars to gain mass appeal, realize their potential to reduce road deaths dramatically and overcome growing traffic congestion.
“If your vision is obscured as a human in strong flurries, then vision sensors are going to encounter the exact same obstacles,” said Jeremy Carlson, an IHS Automotive senior analyst who specializes in autonomy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-10/robot-cars-succumb-to-snow-blindness-as-driving-lanes-disappear
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Yes there is alot out there to prove my statements correct:
January 2016
Recently, Google has been teaching its self-driving cars to drive safely in poor weather conditions. sing laser sensors and the dome-mounted equivalent of windshield wipers, the company is working to help these cars ‘see through’ rain and exhaust clouds.
Google’s December report says: ‘After a multi-year drought, we’re finally starting to get some rain in California. ‘It’s not only a welcome relief for farmers and gardeners, but an opportunity for our cars to get more time learning in cold and rainy weather.’
‘Our cars can determine the severity of the rain, and just like human drivers they drive more cautiously in wet conditions when roads are slippery and visibility is poor.’
However, for now, they automatically pull over and wait out the storm or wait for a test driver to take control.
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Distinction really needs to be made between long-hauls on open highways and difficult urban terrains, and between consumer and commercial. Likely transportation-intensive commercial users will lead the way, driven by economics. My guess is that long-haul driverless cargoes will arrive at hubs to be divided into smaller delivery trucks for difficult urban terrain; as this is the current paradigm, with hubs or centers.
If driverless mining trucks can handle difficult terrain in Australia, long-haul on straight roads across the USA and large flat expanses should be technically possible. Fear could drive infrastructure spending for separate lanes or roadways for driverless trucks; and, I believe the highway funds from gas taxes are in surplus. Industries have traditionally converged around transportation arteries like rivers and roads, and driverless truck corridors would be a natural.
Worse case, inclement weather in which the vehicles cannot drive, they simply pullover to the side of the road; in other words, need not be a big issue for long-haul truck driving, which seems ripe for technological change. No need to worry about food and shelter for a driver. It will still be faster delivery than with a driver who needs rest periods and sleep. That delivery time advantage could be a big factor, like for deliveries to just-in-time factory production lines. Might be an advantage for USA industries, with net job gains offsetting driver losses. I see no reason to preclude niches for independent truckers.
When all else fails, and probably well before that, autonomous cars will know where they are within a few feet using GPS, regardless of snow or rain. GPS fused with any remaining sensor input, along with inertial navigation, will allow driving in any weather.
I was surprised by the number of negative comments on this topic. I can see many opportunities enabled by this new technology. From mapping services to new depot and servicing facilities and of course chain installation stations. I know I would increase my visits to congested urban areas for business / tourism if I could avoid car hassles. Like the cell phone eliminated pay phones it will change the way and the places where people live. Someone will make a fortune being the first mover into a new product related to this change.
Exactly – And that’s a great reason to be interested. Lithium in batteries is one example. Uber is another, but its valuation seems extreme even before IPO. There may be a huge opportunity in this space somewhere. I suspect something will pop up in insurance. Perhaps there is something that will go away and can be shorted. Regardless, the technology is fascinating.
The biggest change will be the loss of about 90% of all traffic on the highway. And again…this is not “in the future” but right now. Tesla already does this.
Mush Talk is trying to say “someone might hack into the Das Auto” when in fact we already know this to be true…all those folks who have been murdered including Cops, Firemen, most likely that Mike from Star Trek, etc…already going on, nobody cares. The Navy Seal who without any doubt was murdered is (the truck was turning left in front of his vehicle so there is no way that was his fault…the fact the car kept going after being sheered off roofside is a problem however) but again just proves the point that you are not in control of your car, plans, ship, 100 million dollar F35, you name it.
You can compartmentalize the damage (a car wreck is better than a train crash is better than your 777 disappearing, etc) so I would be leery of saying “the days of truck drivers is over.” The amount of damage a tractor trailer combo can cause is truly enormous so it’s not enough to just take the drive away from the controls and say “problem solved.” In fact if you put one person in a spotter vehicle in the lead you could put 3-5 trucks back to back and save a fortune in fuel. Trains already do that so good luck competing with that.
Even “more” fuel efficient is simply flying with the Jetstream or doing the same on Lake Superior. Your biggest problem is slowing down actually. Same goes for following the Gulf Stream heading to Northeastern Europe.
Folks who are long distillates and debt dont seem to have learned anything from the collapse in natural gas and coal prices.
Meanwhile equities keep hitting one record high after another….
Mish ,My take on this technology abrealistwriter @wordpress.com
“Unintended Consequences ” tongue and cheek but ,a little bite of reality. Enjoy
Mish, Here my take on this technology, go to, abrealistwriter@wordpress.com
“Intended Consequences” tongue and cheek but with a little bite. Enjoy
Totally agree Mish, I could easily see a future with people subscribing to an Uber monthly service and forgoing car ownership. Instead of parking your car at work for 8 hours and in your driveway for 14, that uber monthly rental is servicing someone 24 hours a day. The number of vehicles on the road could plummet, leaving municipalities with less overhead (parking structures, road repair and expansion.) The amount of deflation is staggering.
Aircraft operate almost 24/7, even general aviation aircraft have far less dead time than automobiles. Complete waste to have cars. Inoperative in garages. Waste of steel, garage space and glass and leather and man hours to assemble. Huge wealth gain as soon as cars can be fully utilized by on-demand dispatch.
Instant living space increase in every home with a garage when cars can be almost instantly summoned instead of stored.
Losers besides professional drivers include emt personnel, highway patrolmen, DUI lawyers, traffic school instructors and marriage counselors. The latter because little is more stressful than bumper-to-bumper traffic after work.
Just hope Trump doesn’t win so he could ban driverless development to preserve the good truck driving jobs.
Very good points! I’ve also read as more driverless cars appear road capacity will likely increase because less following distance needed because of instantaneous reaction time.
I work for a trucking company and we recently announced we will begin working with http://ot.to. The idea is our drivers will get the truck to nearest interstate then engage the autopilot. At the destination, same in reverse. Driver takes over to get the truck from interstate to final destination
Here’s an interesting take…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-16/ford-announces-plans-self-destruct-starting-2021
I agree it’s inevitable that there will be many driver less vehicles on the road. Not sure when, but it will be done piecemeal.
Anyone care to hazard a guess if a DUI can be issued to a passenger in a fully automated car? Speeding tickets? Running a red light? Who is at fault or responsible if there is an accident?
This is going to reek havoc on muni’s that stuff their coffers for liberally enforcing said laws.
Regards,
Cooter
if you want to die in an robot driven car crash be my guest. Don’t drag me in there with you. And ford makes crappy cars that i will never drive again.
All my cars & trucks are Fords, because they are the best. What do you drive robby?
So they do well in snow when you have a hugely detailed high fidelity 3D map of the area so they can operate “blind” since they can’t see under the snow (or any objects under it). It will be interesting when the plows create drifts.
As I said, Billings Montana won’t be until 2030. And if there’s construction and the 3d map is invalid?
It will be wonderful when there is glare ice under the snow.
Most places around here don’t even have Google Street View.
As I’ve said, you can always be right if you can constrain the problem. So in a square mile where Ford already has done the detailed digitizing, in a light snow with no ice, it works.
It works in Greenfield Potemkin village.
Trucks? What if they were driving through Milwaukee this Saturday? The police who might be 30 minutes away will be notified? The police can’t stop road piracy now when the driver is in constant contact with the base.
You have no idea how many crimes go uninvestigated, much less unsolved.
It will be really interesting if they will go into the inner cities like Detroit.
Places where they burn police cars. But I guess competition will fix that too.
Or they will just redline the areas and not serve them.
I thought you lived in Chicago. But I guess self-driving cars without steering wheels and controls will get you through the bad neighborhoods – they won’t slow down so the thugs can get a good shot, and will call the cops just before the fire reaches the electronics.
Mish does not live in Chicago; not even in the same county. He lives about 50 miles from downtown Chi.
Do these self driving vehicles use GPS? Anyone who uses GPS knows that sometimes it does not work, especially if there is heavy rain or snow. I’m just asking; I don’t know. But if they do use GPS and the signal fails, then what happens?
The sooner self driving cars arrive the better. SO many people stand to benefit by it:
1) My mom is in her late 70’s with MS. Her vision is impaired now and she likely will lose her license soon. No car means she has to move from her home into assisted living in the city. A self driving car (or cheap taxi) ensures she can remain in her home. The population is aging fast and needs this badly.
2) Parents who spend 30+ minutes a day shutting kids to school before/after work can now have the car take them to/from school while they get ready for work/finish work thus freeing up time for them.
3) Handicapped people who can’t drive will no longer need those handicapped vehicles to pick them up (thus saving drivers).
As for the idea that people will force trucks off the road and steal their cargo. They’ve been watching too many Mad Max movies. Virtually all trucks have GPS these days and are tracked 24×7 in real time by dispatchers. My uncle drives and when he has valuable cargo (cigarettes for example which have high black market value) if he even stops to go to the bathroom he gets an immediate call on his cell asking why he has stopped and if there is a problem. Those trucks will also come with cameras to record EVERYTHING (ie approaching vehicle license plates, people etc). There is no way anyone is getting away with truck heists.
As for insurance / who’s at fault. It will get worked out very quickly. Don’t believe me. Then think of the automatic transmission. 40 years ago this site would have been filled with naysayers claiming the car would randomly shift into reverse while moving forward on the highway or would fail to shift and blow the motor or cause a crash cause the car accelerated out of control. How much of those fears I listed happen? How are those lawsuits handled (user vs manufacturer). All that worked itself out just fine without the end of the world. The other thing to realize is that all new cars record EVERYTHING you are doing (speeding, weaving etc) and it’s used in crash analysis by police / lawyers. Now add in video / radar recording to sort out who’s at fault.
Tim
P.S. Incidentally there will always be a need for a manual mode of driving on personal vehicles. People who tow trailers or do other unusual activities will need to manually drive in those instances. So those who love driving shouldn’t fear they aren’t going to be able to drive in the future.
Well stated Texas Tim
Thanks
” there will always be a need for a manual mode of driving on personal vehicles.”
Glad to hear that, I was wondering how a self driving car or pickup would back a boat trailer in for launching.
“P.S. Incidentally there will always be a need for a manual mode of driving on personal vehicles. People who tow trailers or do other unusual activities will need to manually drive in those instances. So those who love driving shouldn’t fear they aren’t going to be able to drive in the future.”
I’m afraid people who want to drive their own vehicles will eventually be forced out of their cars, Tim.
The reason? As stated before and in earlier articles. The insurance companies will simply kill it off. It will simply become too expensive to drive your own car, or, any car. Say you ask your insurance company, you want to tow your boat to the lake, they say ‘sure give us $200.’ Would taking your boat to a lake be worth $200? Personally I’m not looking forward to it. I have a classic 1968 vehicle, believe it or not it’s actually fun to drive. I know having fun these days seems to be frowned upon, but there you go, I wasn’t brought up in the pandering, panic about everything, thought system that prevails today.
I’m sure part of this is to ‘save us from ourselves’ whilst driving. But where does it stop? There is almost no job, or activity, that the right machine with the right software cannot do better, faster, safer, than a human.
Try thinking. About many things, including your own arrogance, what year this is, technology advancements, Ford’s own timeline, similar timelines from numerous companies, and reporting fantasies as fact.
Not every problem is solved. But in regards to outrageous lies here’s one from you
“No vehicle can drive in heavy rain or snow. None. Zero. And NONE have any idea how to do so, in fact few if any have attempted it.”
Clearly they have not only an idea of how to do it, but they have already achieved it!
So please stop preaching total complete fabrications and lies.
Mish
HERE IS HOW FORD DID IT – meaning your claimed snow test
note not driving in heavy snow
Ford is testing driverless Fusion sedans in snowstorms at the University of Michigan’s Mcity, a 32-acre (13-hectare) faux neighborhood for robot cars on the Ann Arbor school’s North Campus.
” Ford believes it has found a solution to snow-blanketed lane lines, it said in a press release. It scans roads in advance with lidar to create high-definition 3-D maps that are much more accurate than images from global-positioning satellites, which can be 10 meters (33 feet) off. ”
Here is how VOLVO did not do it and failed and will try again next year.
In Jokkmokk, a tiny hamlet just north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden, where temperatures can dip to 50 below, Volvo Cars’ self-driving XC90 sport-utility vehicle met its match: frozen flakes that caked on radar sensors essential to reading the road. Suddenly, the SUV was blind.
“It’s really difficult, especially when you have the snow smoke from the car in front,” said Marcus Rothoff, director of Volvo’s autonomous-driving program. “A bit of ice, you can manage. But when it starts building up, you just lose functionality.”
After moving the sensors around to various spots on the front, Volvo engineers finally found a solution. Next year, when Swedish drivers take their hands off the wheel of leased XC90s in the world’s first public test of autonomous technology, the radar will be nestled behind the windshield, as it is on the current model, where wipers can clear the ice and snow.
Mark my words Volvo will fail next year too….
but the point is – no one has done it yet
and Ford’s engineer calls it the Holy Grail !
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Here is my quote: ” “No vehicle can drive in heavy rain or snow. None. Zero. And NONE have any idea how to do so, in fact few if any have attempted it.”
Here is a quote from FORD January 2016 ” The Detroit-based auto manufacturer claims to be the first to test fully-autonomous vehicles in winter weather. ”
So my quote is 100 % correct and not able to be refuted.
If you can refute it with a link do so. But I have read most articles and know you cannot.
And Note the word HEAVY not snow flakes we all know a few flakes is not heavy snow fall.
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. You claim ford has done it, but ford has Never successfully driven in heavy rainfall or snowfall and claims to successfully drive with a few snowflakes and snow on the ground – on the ground, with a high-definition 3 D map.
HI MISH I see there is no refute to the quotes I have posted. It is clear I have posted fact
and truth backed up by quote from FORD. It is clear you cannot post One Quote showing a vehicle driven in Heavy RAIN or SNOW. ( Did you see the quote on Google cars where they are programmed to automatically stop when it rains )
HERE is something for you to ponder. What happens to Ford when the 3 D environment around the car changes, trees come down, a dumpster is on the sidewalk, buildings are changed, construction, signage, an addition or awning.
Do you think they have to go re-map ?
Have you ever been to the City, in the Winter, where Large Snow Banks cover the roadways where the trucks have plowed ? You have to shovel your car out.
Do you think Ford’s 3D maps work then ? Do the 3D maps work in heavy snow where snow is plowed in banks on the side of the road ?
When a test vehicle cannot see the ground, because it is covered in snow, it relies on landmarks from the maps to help it navigate and stay on the road.
Ryan Eustice, associate professor at University of Michigan’s college of engineering said: ‘Maps developed by other companies don’t always work in snow-covered landscapes.
‘The maps we created with Ford contain useful information about the 3D environment around the car, allowing the vehicle to localise even with a blanket of snow covering the ground.’
Gee I wonder how expensive it will be to 3D map all the snowbelt 70 % of the USA.
And then what happens when the environment is quickly changed to a four foot high snow bank ?
.
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. Well don’t take my word for it, but you may like to listen to Ford’s Engineer
” “There’s been a lot of hype in the media and in the public mind’s eye” about the technology for self-driving cars “being nearly solved,” said Ryan Eustice, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Michigan who is working with Ford on snow testing.
“But a car that’s able to do nationwide, all-weather driving, under all conditions, that’s still the Holy Grail.”
February 10, 2016 FORD ENGINEER Ryan Eustice.
Blocked sensors don’t work. My Subaru with Eyesight has issues with them. Extremely heavy rain, dirty windshields in the sensor area, bright sunlight all knock it out. Even my back up camera gets fuzzy when covered by road salt.
Ford has eliminated dirt and bad weather?
Re batteries, not yet. Another revolution or two is needed, then absolutely yes. Slow charges, limited miles per charge, and massive bulk are the problems.
Something like 30,000 people get killed a year driving. This tech will be light years improved by 2021. I can’t wait.
Lose GPS? Too much snow or rain? Something as simple as the car pulling over to the shoulder and turning on the hazards, at least until those problems are solved would work. People already do that when a snowstorm or heavy downpour hit.
I am a good driver. No accident for >20 years. Yet two weeks ago, with the sun glaring at just the right spot, I almost turned into a motorcycle because I didn’t see him. An autonomous car most certainly would have.
I can’t wait…!
Motorcycles are harder to see than cars any time. I used to drive a motorcycle and the first thing I learned was: if you want to survive you have to assume you are invisible to many drivers. So yeah the self driver would no doubt be safer to motorcycles.
Or put differently, we won’t need self-driving cars at all. Since in order to protect self-driving trucks, “competition” will create instant teleportation so the Police can go 30 miles instantly when the trucks signal they are being hijacked. But if we can teleport, why drive?
Problems of physics or social problems will not magically be solved.
One place that would be trivially easy to have driverless trucks is the Chunnel, especially because muslim refugees want to jump on to get to the UK. I’m not sure if they will electrify them or just put a “cow catcher” to push them aside, but drivers there are under threat. The Chunnel is ideal algorithmically, drivers are under threat, so it will happen there first.
You know little about policing especially rural highway patrol by the state troopers and sheriffs.
You know less about the actual state of sensors and telematics.
Yet you know how fast things an be fixed and feel free to pooh-pooh objections.
You sound like those who were predicting inflation several years ago when you were predicting deflation. You were an expert in that field and were proven right – they pooh-poohed your arguments about a credit collapse and velocity, etc.
Assume not everyone reading this is as ignorant about the problems as you are. When you don’t know you can play Professor Pangloss and say the best of all possible worlds will fix things – the magic unicorn will fart a super sensor!
Now I happen to know how to implement a self driving car or truck within a year – not 4 or 5 years – for the coverages you want. However it would be so expensive it would not be worth it. These costs aren’t going to disappear and there is no Moore’s law for them. My argument is not that it is impossible, only that it would – except for those hot-house potemkin projects or certain specific areas – not be economical.
It will make a big difference if there is a 10 billion cost to digitize roads to a high resolution, and if the Trucks cost 5-10 million dollars than if it could be done for a few millions (maybe crowd-funded, here put this Lidar on your car and we’ll pay you for each new road you drive on) and the Truck would just cost 1/2 million.
One note – The EPA wants all NEW trucks to emit 25% less. They are already insisting on DEF. So a new truck – including all self-driving trucks will cost more to build and maintain. epautos.com notes the base car price is now $30,000 for a decent on that cost $10k earlier. That is why all are financed which is working under ZIRP. If interest rates go up and all the drivers with paid-for old trucks that get higher mileage and don’t need the extra mandated junk (unless you are a commie and think the feds should force all the old trucks off the road), they will have a cost advantage that the shiny, new, driver-less trucks won’t be able to beat.
If a driverless vehicle costs more than twice that of one with a driver, it is unlikely to happen except for a narrow market, not unlike electric cars.
The problem with Tesla isn’t that electric car technology is bad, only that without massive government subsidies, it isn’t economical even for rich environmentalists that want to virtue signal. I can’t use an electric car where I live because the distances are too great. I might be able to reach one Tesla supercharger on a full battery, then have to follow not the shortest route but the one with superchargers. With all that massive subsidy, we still don’t have most of the USA covered. You could fix that if someone would just spend tens of billions to put Tesla battery swap stations every 100 miles on every road. But it won’t happen. That everyone including the government wants solved and by 2020 but it won’t happen. Physics and material costs. And supercharger stations aren’t as expensive and don’t need any new technology or engineering.
But if a decent electric car costs six-figures and a liquid fuel one costs a fourth of that, the electric car – and its infrastructure – won’t materialize. So electric cars are a nice, especially good for certain areas of the country. Given the correspondence, maybe the government can insist all driverless cars be electric.
Competition is not magic. Driver-less technologies won’t become economical just because.
What about the armies of cashiers at stores and supermarkets? Aren’t they easier to replace than drivers? What’s the hold-up on a Baxter-like robot that grabs the spinach, identifies it as a bunch of spinach and bags the item? My local Albertson’s recently removed the self-checkout machines, maybe because they increase the theft in the store.
I prefer self checkout but the hiccups of using them due to the software not being able to determine if the item was placed in the bagging area, for one, is annoying ASF! And this is for an altogether menial task compared to 20 ton vehicles rolling down the road. These self checkouts have been around for about a decade and they still aren’t quite right. And yet we’re talking about potential mass life threatening machines being hurried into production/use for use on public roads. Again, not for a looong time.
Completely different economic incentives, so comparing the two is foolish.
Okay, so you’d like a similar scale comparison then look at iOS & Android. Still far from perfect and unworthy of hanging the entire public’s life/safety on.
Going back to the original comparison. Getting rid of 100s of thousands of cashiers worldwide carries with it more than enough economic incentive to perfect automated checkout and yet they don’t & it’s not due to unions.
Or maybe because of the grocers’ union.
“My own target for mass deployment (eliminating millions of long-haul trucking jobs) is a “pessimistic” 2022-2024.”
I’ll take that action … all of it.
…
From a PRO driverless rig story:
“The big thing that keeps trucking companies awake at night right now is a lack of drivers,” said Jason Kuehn, a vice-president at Oliver Wyman and one of the report’s authors.
Kuehn believes fully autonomous trucks won’t be on the roads for at least 20 years, but in the meantime technology could help make driving jobs more attractive to young people who don’t like the idea of being on the road for long distances.
http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/driverless-vehicles-are-going-to-change-our-world-but-at-what-cost
Inevevitable, yes. Soon, no. Even if every single possible problem were foreseen(as if) and addressed it would still take a loooong time to get the majority of people on board. A couple generations of familiarity then your dream will come true, Mish.
My 91 y.o. father in law just moved in with us in CA. This is fine, but it is not what he wanted. He wanted to stay in his house in PA. The only reason he couldn’t was transport to medical treatments, especially the “quasi emergency, but you don’t want to call 911” types. Who wants to call an ambulance for a UTI? But at the same time, you can’t wait around for some “elder ride” to be arranged. Where he was, the “elder transport” was okay, but wouldn’t work if you needed it suddenly. If he had had access to a self-driving car he would still be independent for at least several more years. My parents are getting up in years and will be in the same situation. This is very, very common. Even if these cars were only available for the sort of local tootling around that elderly people do, that would be a huge benefit. From what I see here in Silicon Valley, they are already adequate for that sort of driving.
Seems like there could be big money in taking sucker bets against autonomous vehicles. But the bigger question is how would you force them to pay up?
I take it all back:
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/aug/17/urban-transportation-uber-lyft-smart-cities-san-francisco
But it won’t be competition. It will be crony capitalism throwing billions in taxpayer money to create a roboTeslaMotors.
Columbus’s smart city evolution is taking shape thanks to $40m in federal funds the city recently won as part of the US Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge.
Vote Hillary and some version of RoboDriverX will give a few hundred million to the Clinton Foundation and get the billions necessary to develop the vehicles, tell cities no federal funds until they put smart traffic signals and digitize themselves, and ban manned vehicles so there will be no competition for the driverless cars. Oh and put in special lanes just for them without any traffic controls from the airports or other major places.
Driver-less cars coming soon, en mass?
Fat chance.
Not gonna happen in your lifetime.
Move along…cutting and pasting others work.
Speaking of theft, I should note out here where I live many main roads (Major state routes) are the “zero bar ranch”. No cell service from ANY carrier. No 911. Of course it would be a bit late, but Dude, where’s my Truck?
As I said, I could do it but it would be expensive. Add one Iridium phone to the Bill of Materials, or some other satellite access.
Oh, and we need to do something about malwhere: http://hackaday.com/2016/07/26/we-declare-the-grandmaster-of-pokemon-go-gps-cheats/ – rerouting for under $500!
“Then, as adoption progresses, insurance costs will drop for driverless vehicles and soar for cars with steering wheels.”
yup,, gouging people again because they resist,, do what we say or PAY extra…
sounds like extortion to me…….. way to many other examples to type… im sure Everyone gets my point……..
market forces
Driverless cars will have fewer accidents
Cars with drivers will have more
Assuming for the moment that your predictions work out to be more or less accurate, I wonder about rural areas. Google maps still can’t find our place in the Gulf Islands, and we aren’t particularly distant from major centres. I also wonder about the loss of jobs all this automation continues to encourage. There don’t seem to be comparable numbers of living-wage occupations looming to replace what is being lost. I realize I’m in line to be called a Luddite, but still I wonder. We’re facing generations of paying off the mountain of debts, either through inflation (which will leave us with an awful lot of old people with no means of support, their savings and pensions having been wiped out, so high social & taxation costs) or some kind of depression/reset, which is also a bad time for jobs. I can see the technology being here, as you say – we almost always implement whatever new idea we have – but perhaps a mix for a long time?
Whether you agree with Mish or not, just place your bets in the market. Ten years from now you can gloat about how right you were or you can pretend you never made those losing bets (or lie about the winning bets you didn’t actually make).
Driving on a UK motorway today, repeatedly being tailgated, cut-up etc. Then the whole carriageway grinds to a halt and we sit for an hour waiting for tow-trucks to drag the debris of a crash away. Bring on self-driving everything, I say. It can’t be worse…
However, I don’t see the point of personal self drving cars, i.e. the same failed model of single occupancy vehicles consuming more and more resources and space. Self-driving versions of these would actually create more congestion as they would need to travel to the next pickup. A Bus-car hybrid with 10 or so seats would be optimal, with no fixed routes, which could pick up passengers en-route and share the costs between them.
These vehicles will be hugely deflationary. It’s not just the truck drivers you don’t need, or the number of trucks you don’t need (capacity utilization will leap upwards). For all commuters it means they could use something like Über, and not have to park their car all day, and save themselves the costs of owning a car. Since there is about 1 car per person now, there is a lot of room for shrinking the fleet. Uber-like will be a lot cheaper (no driver). It will deflate the need to park and fewer cars imply that roads will be less congested. Using something like Uber with good dispatching could mean sharing the ride for less cost, freeing up road space. Since the fleet would achieve far greater capacity utilization, the number of vehicles sold will trend downwards. Insurance rates and business will likely collapse.
Some effects could be inflationary. With a lot less demand for parking spots (and garages), urban density would trend up, which would probably increase market prices for location. Most readers will probably not recall the lost art of steering with your left hand, accessing the column shift through the steering wheel to switch gears, so that your right hand on your date’s leg does not need to be withdrawn, thus ceding all gains up to the current time. Autonomous driving certainly extends the possibilities here.
Wow… the lack of confidence in our collective ability to solve these driving issues baffles me. It’s coming… and the race is on. This will be the next big shift in society and there are billions to be made. That alone is why this will happen. Follow the money… End of story…
exactly
In 1999, the world’s fastest super computer was the ASCI Red, built at Sandia National Laboratories to simulate nuclear explosions. The computer used 850 KW and could do 1.3 teraflops (trillion floating point operations per second.) Wikipedia doesn’t have a cost number, but probably in the millions.
In 2016, I just bought an NVidia 1060 graphics card. It uses 120 w, costs $279. Does 4 teraflops…
You guys arguing against self-driving cars just don’t know what time it is.
The bottom line is the money will drive this. There is billions to be made and the fact is the younger generation could give two s**t’s about owning a car. They’d rather be on there phone. It’s coming people… I agree with robs, place your bets, make your investments and quite trying to talk this down because ALL the car companies are working on this and the problems WILL be solved. Guaranteed.
Grocery stores and fast food outlets are full of artificially intelligent self driving meals. Yet I don’t buy any of it.
Mish doesn’t get yasda’s comment. People will hack these things for pure vandalism, the way cats kill mice – just because they can. That’s why it will be hilarious to watch and impossible to fight against. No one will care if the doors lock or the police are notified. They’ll just watch it wreck and burn for the fun of it, or for terrorism, or for ransom or whatever. It doesn’t have to be just to steal.
Don’t be ridiculous
The police will be there in minutes
On this topic you have the optimism of a 10 year old boy raised in The Hamptons, Mish. I just don’t think you’ve thought the situation through and considered all the ramifications that go along with the concept of self-driving cars. You have your eyes set on the final goal with little analysis on what it would really take to arrive there. This surprises me. Generally you are very analytical and you consider every possibility in your search for conclusion. Here you went directly from A to Z. For some reason self-driving cars turned on a green light in your brain when there should at least be a flashing yellow. Oh well. It’s a harmless topic. If you want to fantasize knock yourself out.
I’m surprised nobody has said it yet: “Hello. You’re in a Johnny Cab.”
The really exciting part of the technology is largely missed by writers. Autonomous car software can be extended so your car, car A, talks to my car, car B – when it wants to. They constantly compare notes on an exception – broadcast – basis. Car A notes that an accident has just happened on X Street. Car B is farther away but decides to detour.
Car A is in a new city. It calls out and Car C answers providing an entire current to the minute, map of the area.
I’m driving a Ford. A Ford in another state has encountered a rare situation outside its protocol base. What it learns it transmits via a central Ford server to all Fords. My Ford is now ready for it.
Ford will create a map first. But by placing specially programmed cars on the road, the cars can create and constantly reconfigure the maps themselves. The Google city mapping program in real time and completely autonomous.
And this is just with a few minutes of thought.
Going further with machine learning applications appearing in doctors and lawyers offices, the same point is missed. Place 10,000 automated doctors in 10,000 offices across the country and set them so they compare notes. Do the same with legal assistants.
What has to be emphasized is that there will be accidents and misdiagnoses, but the relative frequency of such will become vastly smaller than for the humans being replaced, especially as software systems develop a collective consciousness of their subject matter.
Important point, the transponder will also prevent blind spot collisions. A car blocking traffic around a corner or over the crest of a hill will alert conflicting traffic in time for it to (autonomously) evade a collision.
Poor traction, road hazards like a stray wheel or a steer or deer, likewise can be broadcast.
The economic value so far exceeds the development cost that it will be done if it can be done. Electric vehicles are inapposite. They do less more expensively, or, at a minimum, the benefits and the costs can be debated. The mind staggering economic benefit of autonomous vehicles, especially with sharing-economy dispatch algorithms, justifies Manhattan Project investment, although hopefully with a far higher
proportion of private capital.
Ford was also promoting hydrogen cars in 2007, now where’s my hydrogen car?
Ford was essentially the only player trumping that idea.
Today we have Ford, GM, Google, Apple, Toyota, BMW, Otto, to name a few. So please stop and think before making ridiculous comments.
It’s more likely that ford will no longer exist by 2021
It’s more likely that ford will not exist by 2021
How long did it take to convert to automobiles from horses. A generation. How long did commercial aircraft become mainstream. A generation. How long did it take electric cars to go mainstream. It will be a generation. Self driving cars will take a generation. That is 20 plus years to implement. Not because of technology but it takes that long to become accepted by people. It is human nature which has been the same throughout history.
Recently I had to do much research for future transportation issues, and a common date of 2030 for transportation singularity was a consistent projection. I could find no reason to dispute it based on present R&D. That does not mean it is a 100% implementation, but the trend will be fully established in all areas of transportation and then move forward from there. The predicted major holdup was the regulations, the gov lags the R&D and time to market.
God help me if even a small number of these robot cars start driving the speed limit on heavily trafficked roads. The gridlock will be historic. Seriously, a rolling roadblock of cars driving 55mph where the typical speed is 65-75? Ouch.
Think swarm mode
With cars communicating,
– changing lanes will be smooth
– tailgate safely and save fuel
– detect traffic condition miles ahead and reroute if required
– automated reversible lane (tidal traffic flow)
– emergency vehicles won’t be block and travel at faster speed (car will just open up like Moses parting the red sea )
– simple minor accidents (or got forbid a cow on the side) won’t cause 10 miles of jam just because people wanna rubber neck
– do we still need lanes?
In very near future, all non automatic driver please use the slow lane or barred from the highway or retrofit
I’m the one that really set you off in a recent post of yours about self driving cars. My fact filled reply about a crazy drive to my parents house led you to really mock me. That’s fine… I’m an adult. I really want self driving cars. And have no problem adopting one. But it’s really hard to separate fact from hype. I have saved articles for several decades. If all the hype came true, we would be in a very different world than we are now. The hype I see every days about all kinds of automation in our lives, that never comes. Drives me crazy.. You may be correct, and this is right around the corner. As I said before, I work in a factory. That is working really hard to automate all steps of manufacturing. We have found it really hard to do this in a controlled clean room environment. The craziest minuscule things can shut down production. But over 10 years we have gone from 10 people to 1 per the same amount of production. That is a huge change in man hours. But we still have not been able to eliminate people from the equation. An article I saw yesterday seemed to claim that Tesla, is bringing type 3 or possibly 4 autonomous vehicles by next year. But then Tesla has missed or never met 10 big promised goals so far. So who really knows… Musk, recently did promise something that will blow our minds by early next year. So maybe I’m all wrong and it will be here then. I see the wonderful possibilities and wait in anticipation of at least level three cars.
I agree that driverless cars are coming and it it s good thing.
I disagree that car ownership will decline. I fail to see how a driverless taxi will make more people not own a car than a taxi with a driver. In fact car ownership should increase as people who are unable to drive buy vehicles.
I disagree that insurance rates will rise for cars with human drivers. Human drivers won’t get in more accidents if half the cars on the road are autonomous. If autonomous cars are safer logic dictates that the human drivers they share the road with will be involved in fewer accidents. So as their accident rates drop humans will see lower insurance rates.
I disagree that advancing technology will cause mass unemployment because it never has. Although 0% interest rates and peak debt may take up the cause.
I also believe that nearly all personal vehicles will end up having some sort of autopilot, but will not come without steering wheels. When I’m driving on a jobsite there are no roads or addresses to tell the truck where to go. I’d much rather just drive than tell a car left, right, no a little farther, ,OK now there are some dozers ahead, stop by the one Catwalk is driving so I can talk to him, but not too close cuz he’s working in this general area and we don’t want to get run over, and if you see sand that is a little powdery don’t stop cuz it’s really soft, and for the love of God don’t park in front of this pipe…
Why not just bypass the self-driving cars debate and go straight to passenger drones?
Let’s really make the discussion interesting.
Remember that old cartoon of the 50’s or 60’s – The Jetsons?
Why not?
Let’s think really big. 🙂
mish,
you are so wrong.
by 2026 (a mere 10 years from now)
there will be at least 25 million, perhaps 35 million, SD vehicles on the US highways.
ill try to keep it short.
there are two ways to crack a problem: brute force and intelligent approach. computers are exceedingly efficient in the first one, they are useless in the second. can the problem of “driveress cars” be solved by brute force, which is what more or less all manufacturers are trying to do? i doubt it, and anyone who has ever used a satnav will probably agree with me.
are “driverless cars” as imagined by Mish possible in 5 years? i am available to bet a nice sum of money that it wont happen in 5 or not even 10 years.
are “driverless cars” as imagined by Mish, which is, a car that has no steering wheel, possible in 5 years?
sure. even less, probably.
but this will have such devastating impact on economy that they will become immediately redundant.
“driverless cars” are possible only if government mandate them, ban any other mean of transport or confiscate parts of existing roads for driverless vehicles, and centralize the control of the traffic. they will also be so slow and inefficient that nobody will really use them. they will become another sort of “public transport” and any hope of efficiency and safety will be quickly killed by the usual goverment incompetence and lazyness.
driverless bus in Sion, Switzerland. 20kmh top speed, on a fixed, preprogrammed route in little, slow traffic in the cobbled city center of this small town. and look at that rollcage 😀
and they are not even saving money as the bus must be attended by a human operator.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ySoLJYH8o
dont even ask how much those buses cost.
reality: some sort of autopilot “a la Tesla” is possible with current technology and has some possible real world application with little or even no modification to existing infrastructure of advanced countries, motorways mostly. autopilots will improve but will still be illegal to use for some time. liability and legal problems still exist. and btw, cars is a global market. even been in Dehli, or Naples in Italy?
driverless cars in 5 years? come on. i drive a 10 years old car and it hardly has any automation. cars are not mobilephones that people change every 2 years or less.
even if driverless cars were available now, which they arent, would take 10 years just to replace a fraction of the existing fleet.
as i said, if driverless cars happen is because some crazy government will mandate them, and kill any working economy in the process.
The more we automate and computerize, the easier it is to shut down society. You will not need guns and bombs to destroy us, a computer will be more than enough.
If one of those self driving trucks catches a fire in a wheel storage (not uncommon in a heavy vehicle) the robot will have to get out and pick up a fire extinguisher, especially if it´s loaded with propane or similar it really should.
There undoubtedly will be “learning curve” for any new vehicle. I wouldn’t fly in a 1950’s airplane now, but lots of people did and a some got killed and lessons were learned.
In your example, the first fire that blows-up a driver-less propane-truck, and wipes at a few dozen people, will cause other people to demand regulations, which will lead to trucks have fire-suppression equipment, which will provide opportunities for lawyers and libertarians to argue over indefinitely.
Mish, totally agree. This is the new wave of technology which will change the entire landscape for cars and logistics. Vehicles will once again become a totally utilitarian instruments and the concept of owning a car because of the way it drives will become the haven for museums and a few nut jobs who don’t think this will happen. Vive la Change.
I think one of the most telling signs that this is coming, is that the large automobile manufacturers, like Ford, GM, Benz, etc. Have all made announcements, and in many cases large investments, in both the technology and in companies like Uber. They not only see this as a technology for their vehicles but seem to understand what it means for them in the future. EG fewer cars per person, and significantly less if any personal vehicle ownership.
They are working into morphing themselves over time, into being the ride-hailing company,
It is very rare that old like companies, see the future accurately and start to prepare in advance, vs going Oh shit, and scrambling to adjust.
If it’s not MY money or life at risk, I don’t have an opinion about driverless cars. There should be some certification process tho (a driving test for the software).
I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for graft and corruption too, which is where the push from the politicians will come from.
Well, all I will say is that I’m not going to be an early adopter on this one. I think the engineers are in for an almost infinite number of interactions that they weren’t counting on.
My best hope would be the car manufactures retain liability for software bugs; But, experience would say the government would end up shielding them like vaccine companies. You can try to prove your claim to the Software Error Compensation fund.
Why does the Portland OR light rail have drivers? The original intent was driverless. Once mass transit on dedicated tracks and railroads are driverless then I will believe cars and trucks will be successful in navigating trackless free pavement.
it’s a good point. Railway has a lot of issues with signal errors (a leaf falling in the wrong place etc). And this is moving on rails…
the issue of driverless cars reminds me of solar power and solar power adoption. Despite solar power being around for decades adoption has been minimal at best. And i am talking about places where the price of electricity is high and its almost sunny year round. Why…because people are fairly comfortable with that they have and resistant to change. There are many technologies which could have already replaced humans yet people still prefer the old way of doing things, examples despite e-ink books are still printed and released on paper, people still goto the movies and buy cds and dvds. I think people are making the mistake of incorrectly extrapolating based on current trends(like a moon base by 1999). One merely has to pick up a copy of popular mechanics or a similar magazine see what was promised 10 or 20 years ago and what has come about now. Im not saying driverless cars wont catch on but it likely wont be panacea that everyone was expecting or hoped for.
It’s amazing the number of people who cannot see what is happening right in front of their noses