GM Claims Advanced Cruise Control By 2008

pavelvp writes "Economist is reporting that General Motors is working on the prototype of the self-driving car. From the article, "The car uses updated technology combined with several existing innovations and, according to the manufacturer, could be in production by 2008. But, while the technology takes some of the boring bits out of driving, it falls far short of an automatic taxi service and, anyway, various legal, technical and social barriers to its introduction remain.""

Comments

Good job catching up GM

[Critical_]

Mercedes has had their automatic cruise control now for over 5 years. It only applies about 10-15% of braking power and is available in all their upper end cars. With the new S-Class coming in December, the new version can fully stop the car and bring it back up to speed on its own. So where is the innovation? Mercedes has been a tech leader in cars for as far back as I can think. ABS, Stability control, Airbags, etc are all Mercedes innovations which they allow other car companies to use.

Re:Good job catching up GM

[snarkh]

Why don't you RTFA before posting. The cruise control designed by GM can actually steer.

Nah, it would be too much to ask.

Self-Driving => High Price

[Anonymous Coward]

A self-driving car represents the same risks that the auto-pilot of a passenger jet represents. One tiny malfunction could "steer" the car into a head-on collision with the accompanying $3-billion lawsuit.

The mechanical parts must be exceedingly reliable, and the electronics must be fault tolerant.

In short the electronics of a self-driving car must be triple-modular redundant (TMR) with a majority output voter between 3x replicated electronic blocks. Expect the first self-driving Buick LeSabre to cost 3x last year's model. The price will be about $100,000.

Actually

[Critical_]

Chrysler is OWNED BY Mercedes.

Re:The Wheels Must Roll

[Mister_IQ]

The story is by Heinlein, and it's called "The Roads Must Roll". It's a story of the power in unions and the danger in letting a small group of people control a ubiquitous service.

Not "Self Driving" but "Adaptive Cruise Plus"

[ThosLives]

Interesting - the article doesn't talk about automatic cars at all - it just talks about an updated form of adaptive cruise control that works at low speeds and also incorporates a lane-departure warning system. Adaptive cruise is already available on many models of high-end cars, some low-end cars, and even some semi trucks. Lane-departure is a little more difficult because it's more difficult to discern a lane than it is an obstruction in front of you, and it's difficult to get a driver to acknowledge a warning (after all, how many turn signals do you see going randomly?), but lane-departure is almost here.

Adaptive cruise is a far cry from automatic cars, and a lane-departure warning system is the first step in making cars that will be allowed to steer themselves.

But, like the summary and article say, the more difficult aspects are sociological, not technical.

Re:The Wheels Must Roll

[soft_guy]

It was a short story called "The Roads Must Roll" and it was by Robert Heinlein.

Automatic driving is coming, but not this way

[Animats]

This "adaptive cruise control" stuff is scary. The basic idea is to have a lateral control system that keeps in lane, and a longitudinal control system that prevents tailgating. This is good enough for the driver to fall asleep, but not good enough to handle even minor emergency situations.

Experience with ABS systems is instructive. ABS systems definitely improve braking, but don't reduce accidents. Drivers with ABS use their shorter stopping distance to follow more closely, cancelling out the safety benefits.

I run one of the DARPA Grand Challenge teams, which requires somewhat better technology. The current Grand Challenge technology is clunky (everybody has huge, mechanically scanned LIDAR devices or weak vision systems), but true solid state eye-safe outdoor 3D LIDAR imaging devices are just becoming available. With that technology, doing this right is within reach.

Re:Automatic driving is coming, but not this way

[random735]

your impression is wrong, then.

there are 1-2 specific circumstances in which ABS increases braking distance...notably on gravel.

otherwise, even on dry asphalt, let alone on slick surfaces, ABS shortens stopping distance.

this largely has to do with the coefficient of static friction being higher than the coefficient of sliding friction.

Better turn a profit first.

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides the fact that other companies that actually make good cars, like BMW and Mercedes, are farther along on this, GM should be more concerned about actually achieving a profitable quarter than with developing a robot-driven car.

GM "innovation"

[dAzED1]

Know what? Despite everything else...if I were to buy a new car today, right now, this instant...

It would be from GM. Why? Because the car would be for my wife, and the "Onstar" thing GM has in all cars would just make me feel a lot better about some of the things she puts herself through. I know it makes me a chauvanist (sp?) but...it would make me feel better, feel like she was safer.

If the car wants to do the steering for me when I'm falling asleep...hey! Even better.

Mercedes Employee?

[jgc7]

ABS, Stability control, Airbags, etc are all Mercedes innovations which they allow other car companies to use.

Nice plug for Mercedes, but you may want to check your facts. ABS was invented by Bosch
Air bags were first offered on Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and Buicks (all GM products)

Re:Good idea

[Big Boss]

The author was talking about the fact that a hybrid needs to be driven for something like 66,000 miles per year to realize a savings of fuel costs versus price of the car.

That makes good print, but what did he compare to? The cost of buying the car alone? Well that's disingenious. That only matters if you were not going to buy a car AT ALL. If you were buying one anyway, getting a hybrid vs. normal car causes that difference to drop quickly. For the Prius, the best comparison is to a Camry (they have about the same interior space). I did the math a while back and found I could make up the cost difference in less than 2 years with my current commute of about 90 miles/day at the then current gas prices of about $2.20/gal. Gas is set to hit over $3/gal soon in this area, so I'm probably down to 1 year now.

He also went in to the eventual disposal of the giant battery/batteries in these cars. Not a pretty picture.

I don't know about the others, but Toyota offers a buyback for the batteries, and owns a battery plant. They recycle the batteries as the Nickel used in them is valuable. They use Ni-MH for now, possibly Li based in the future. Both can be recycled. Normal lead-acid batteries are far more dangerous to the enviornment and have a very high compliance rate for recycling. I see no reason Hybrid batteries are any worse.

The Honda Accord hybrid looks like a regular Honda Accord so they are not selling nearly as well.

I doubt that is the reason. The Accord Hybrid is designed for more power, not more milage. Hybrids are in the news for milage, so the Accord gets kind of overlooked. As gas prices shoot up, more and more people are wanting to get the costs of commuting down. A Prius will do that, an Accord will not. The Prius has also been around longer, and has had great marketing and has been noticed by the masses. Name recognition wins elections in this country, it's not suprising that it sells cars as well.