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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.""
Make something Fool Proof and a better class of fool will come along and proove you wrong.
Still, we can dream of jumping into the car for a relaxing nap on a 12 hour drive, eh?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Perhaps they should be concentrating on making their vehicles safer http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/wire/sns -ap-gm-recall,1,3343951.story?coll=sns-ap-investin g-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true instead of making their cars drive themselves.
Heck, they should be worrying about trying to sell their vehicles! Cause Honda and Toyota aren't going away any time soon!
...working on something more useful, such as making your entire consumer line hybrids by 2010 or something along those lines? Seems like we're adding all these frivolous things to cars nowadays but neglecting to do anything about the fuel issues in automobiles.
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That's a 1950s pipe dream. Get real. Every local government will have the cops standing by to cause accidents and traffic jams to give out tickets and collect the money. Highway robbery doesn't get any better than this.
If you had any idea of the complexity of flying anything, you'd take that comment back. I'm in the final stages of getting a private pilot license, and let me tell you, it's a lot harder than it looks (not to mention 1-2 hours of trip planning before any flight away from the airport a meaningful distance). I've just been doing my cross-country flights, and there are about 5 times per flight where I have no clue where I am (GPS notwithstanding, because you have to be able to find your way around in the event of an electrical failure). I know you merely meant this comment to be a witty, quick-way-to-+5-Funny one-liner, but the thought of the average person expecting to get into their flying car and be able to drive it without killing anyone scares me enough that I had to comment anyway.
You think all the owners who buy sports cars, whether it's a base-model ford mustang or a top-end ferrari, are going to be satisfied "turning over all control" of their car and just reading the newspaper or watching a movie on the way to work?
Maybe it's high time to realize that pony cars and "sport" cars (whatever that means, the driver doesn't do any sport in them), as well as SUVs, with the manlyhood people think they get out of them, are a thing from a past where gasoline was cheap and inexhaustible.
My generation thinks a '69 Charger is cool. Today's teens are starting to seriously think hybrids, electrics and hydrogen-powered cars are cool. Their children will probably think the more ecological a car, the more hip it is. When people finally stop equating engine size and penis size, then manual overrides of futuristic sport cars will not be a problem, because people won't think in those terms, and there won't be sport cars. Cars will finally drop to the status of mere people transportation devices, which they are, no more, no less.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Comparing this with an auto-pilot is a bit stupid, if you don't mind me saying so. Apart from redundancy, which you mentioned, there is also the issue that auto-pilots are directly controlled by human beings, who are, in turn, directed by other humans with large radars. Also, one should notice that most flight plans are a great deal straighter than roads, meaning that precision offered by an autopilot far exceeds what a human could ever hope to do, thus increasing safety. Now, using an autopilot during VFR flight (i.e. light aircraft in good conditions in sight of the ground the whole time) is unsafe, because it is fully the pilot's responsibility for traffic separation, not to mention that more precise tracks from place to place mean that there's a greater likelihood of two aircraft being in the same spot at the same time.
...shouldn't we be taking a heavy focus on more fuel efficient, cost efficient forms of transport and increasing passive safety over gizmos like this?
I honestly can't say I'd trust a vehicle to do my driving for me.
Very good idea, as far as the actual driving goes -- that is, I would use it.
/have/ to watch the road anymore, attention will drift for longer and longer, and you won't see something, and it will crash.
Problem: It will crash when presented with some situations. You can watch for those situations, but since you don't normally
The few problems will be directly blamed on the car makers. They will not be able to keep this cruise control on the market.
I've often wished that my car would automatically stay between the lines. The roads are already tilted so that you can drive (with good alignment) quite a ways without touching the wheel. But if I had that option, it's only a matter of time before I fell asleep on a long freeway, and then the computer makes a mistake, and I crash.
The technology is not new. I saw a video on it quite a while ago. But you can't introduce it because some people will die as a viscerally direct result, even if it saves other lives in the process.
They mentioned that it would probably first be introduced as a "you're going off the road" warning system, and verrrry slowly work its way in from there. That's the only feasible option I see.
I really don't feel alarmist about this at all. They're gonna need to be very, very careful in introducing this, because when cars crash -- as they inevitably will at least once -- due to unexpected circumstances that arise quickly -- they will look very bad.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Today's teens are starting to seriously think hybrids, electrics and hydrogen-powered cars are cool.
Today's teens also think aston martins, ferraris, and lotus elises are cool as well. Granted, hybrids have taken on a "hip" status, but they haven't replaced sports cars. Many teenagers still think that '69 Charger is pretty darn cool too.
If you haven't noticed, auto manufacturers are in the midst of a huge horsepower war that hasn't been seen in decades. 400 bhp is now becoming standard on upper-end luxury vehicles, with the 500hp threshold being crossed by vehicles still south of 100k. It also so happens that this is being done with engines that aren't just "bigger" as in the mid-20th century, but rather with exciting new efficient technology.
Cars have been status symbols since they were invented a hundred years ago, and that hasn't changed at all. High gas prices don't matter. I live in California and pay $2.99/gallon these days. If I was paying $2.00/gallon, I'd save $600 a year. Whoopee. My sports car gets 23 mpg, and a "fuel-efficient" non-hybrid gets 35 mpg. Is my car worth the price delta? You bet it is.
I don't know. I could see this happening. At first, maybe someone creates one experimental road with this technology. If GM and Ford could use it as differentiation, they might have the clout to get some assistance from congress. GM and Ford really need to do something serious to shake things up very soon.
If it worked, the fact that it would work would be a compelling reason. Think about cities like Seattle, Houston, etc. where the freeways are very crowded and the costs of new freeways are too high to be practical.
The ACLU is not some all powerful "spoiler" out to hold back innovation.
Plus, if your argument would hold, then people wouldn't have catalytic converters, airbags, or seatbelts. These are all features which make cars cost a lot of money and most people don't want.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
catalytic converters -- protect the environment, cheap, only downside is it lowers power very slightly.
airbags -- cheap, saves lives, downside is possible added injury due to deployment but overall benefit is worth it
seatbelts -- very cheap, saves lives.
automated traffic system -- vastly increases costs, reduces traffic congestion, reduces traffic fatalities only if the system is perfect and the mechanical parts never fail. What if you blow a tire? The car behind you might still plow into you, only now instead of at 70 mph it's plowing into you at 150 mph. What if the actual auto-drive system fails? Maybe you swerve into oncoming traffic. This is just hardware failure. What if you get hacked / get a "virus"?
In actuality, I didn't mean to imply the ACLU is a means to stifle innovation, but rather there is a legitimate argument to be made that such a system does discriminate against the lower classes. That IS a battle the ACLU would fight.
I can't help but wonder if the joy of driving will be entirely lost in 20-50 years.
Just like the joy of horseback riding has been lost? There will always be venues. And if you've ever been out to remote locations, you'd know that while these systems would work great in cities, it's usually completely unfeasible in a rural context.
What you'll see is automation replacing where people would normally be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Less used outskirt roads would rely on manual driving.
No amount of 'joy of driving' makes rush-hour traffic fun.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
No, the ACLU would not fight it. They only take on cases that have to do with protecting civil rights related to the constitution. Driving is not a right, nor is it protected by the constitution.
Also, you are making assumptions about the automated traffic system without actually having used one. People made the same kinds of arguments about airbags, seatbelts, etc.
My father was the first person to get to a car accident when seatbelts were pretty new. He could not get the driver out of the car which was on fire because of the seatbelt. It had jammed during the crash. To this day, he blames the seatbelt for the woman's death because he couldn't get her out of the car. He thinks that seatbelts are a bad, bad idea. I don't argue with him about it either.
Airbags have decapitated children. I know people who think they are a bad, bad idea.
And if you think catalytic converters are great, my parents have a 1976 MG Midget to sell you. This car was made the first year catalytic converters were required. The catalytic converter in it doesn't work for shit and the car was constantly in need of repair to the catalytic converter.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Waste of time - we have drivers in cars already. How about expending the effort and investments on electric vehicles so we can still drive when the oil it too expensive to use or unobtainable?
:v)
Sorry, I forgot. That's the period of maximum profit for the oil industry, isn't it? Silly me. Oh well, roll on with more of those CO2-induced hurricanes...
Vik
Whoa, Nelly.
What? I feel far safer on public transport because it's a great big bloody hunk of metal that would scarcely show a dent if that latte-chugging SUV-not-needing chain-smoking lunatic who is weaving in and out of lanes looks away for those critical thirty seconds to finish off the Filet O Fish in their lap...
The only reason I would be made to feel unsafe on public transport is not because I am not in control of the vehicle, but rather some of the folks sitting around me might not be in control of themselves...
i can't ever see any car manufacturer doing this, because the first time one of these has an accident lawyers will jump all over it saying it was the auto piolts fault.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It's first going to come in through the highway system, in special lanes, like when they trialed on I-15 in 1997. There's nothing for intra-city commuters for a while; That's just not technically feasible right now.
It doesn't require every single car to participate. In trials, they are probably going to use special lanes. Second, the cars have light sensors, for detecting cars around them that don't play along with the system. My guess is that eventually, after 0 (zero) controlled-car accidents (outside of crackers) it will become required to participate in the electronic transport system: Human casualities will be just way to high, and human drivers will not be trusted.
The predicitions by AHS experts that I've seen say that the first generation will roll out around 2015, and work over the wireless infrastructure that is now being sold to consumers as "Internet, computers, and toys, in the car!" The second generation is predicted and planned to roll out around 2025, and extend the system to urban core.
When people get used to doing stuff in their car other than driving, they'll quickly forget the romance of driving, just as they forget the romance of "actually seeing the other person" at the gas pump (unless you're in Oregon) or the bank teller at the ATM.
Once you have such a system, if the car is put in manual override mode, all of the vehicles within a certain distance go into an idiot avoidance mode. The lanes become wider and vehicles pass the relatively slow-moving manual vehicle more carefully.
Bear in mind that the speed of fully automated vehicles need not be limited to the safe speed for the most incompetent driver on the road. In fact, with proper transponders and multipoint wireless networking, limitations like being able to see around corners far enough to stop safely cease to be an issue, so the speed limit on almost every road could be raised to 100 MPH or more except when manual vehicles are in use.
Even the roads where the maximum safe speed is lower usually only require slower speeds at certain spots (tight turns, etc.), and thus, unless the road is near saturation, the overall speed of the road can still be substantially faster. It's like ping times. While you will never have a total time less than the ping time across the longest hop, the ping times of the other hops don't have to get longer to match unless the previous hops start to end up with full pipes beecause of a backup of ping traffic across the one slow hop.
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there are about 5 times per flight where I have no clue where I am
If this is true, you really need to pay more attention to your charts and dead reckoning, not to mention your VORs or even your directional beacon. You should always know where you are, and should always confirm your location with multiple means.
This was particularly important where I learned to fly, just outside of Washington. If you don't know where you are for even five or ten minutes, you may accidentally fly into the controlled airspace around the DC airports, or worse, into the restricted space over DC or Camp David.
And beyond that, they could adjust for weather conditions. The speed limit is designed to incorporate reaction time for mmild-to-moderate inclement weather, as well. Automated cars could adjust automatically.
However, this would also require more rigorous maintenence to be done on each vehicle... tires suddenly become much more important when you're taking a tight turn in the rain.
Maintenence and inspection would have to be tied into the cost of the vehicle to prevent Billy Joe Bob's automated rustbucket from causing a pile-up at 200 MPH.
0x0D 0x0A
Geebus! Never, *ever* during my solo x-country flights did I not know where I was. Drop the GPS, learn to use your charts, the VORs, and your eyes. The gadgets are cool and all, but they're disrupting your training.
Yeah, I'm 17, and I can tell you that no teens actually care about hybrids because they're hybrids. I haven't seen them taking on a "hip" status at all, in fact most teenagers probably think that a hybrid is something their gay biology teacher would talk about.
In the end, even the teens that have heard of a Prius or other hybrid only know that they get good mileage which is pretty damn important at $7 an hour. I think in my school of 1900 students, probably 50 could tell you that a hybrid uses a battery and a gasoline motor to get better gas mileage.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Wow. I don't know what or where you fly, but if'd ever gotten lost five times in a flight, I wouldn't have my license today. And I failed my first checkride.
I actually find flying more relaxing, by far, than driving. It's less complicated -- never anything to run into besides one big, flat target unless you're in busy airspace. In a Buick, if you look at the rearview mirror too long you wind up permanently joined with the guy in front of you. In a Cessna 140, if you scan outside for traffic and trim the plan, you can spend a good deal of time looking at charts with only a periodic glance at instruments or outside.
Learning to fly is harder than learning to drive. Once you get your license, though, you realize that flying itself is pretty easy in a small plane like a 140. It's the layers of bearocracy that ruin it for most people; I've had my license for two years and haven't filed a single flight plan since I got it. Why? It's a waste of time. Sure, if I'm going to fly over a few states, I'd do it, and for precisedly that reason I rarely fly very far at all.
It's unfortunate that this has happened to general aviation; a lot of pilots, like myself, very rarely fly anywhere but circles around the runway an occasional short cross-country trips to practice navigation. They quickly grow sick of talking to control towers and remembering laundry lists of visibility requirements and filing flight plans and talking to weather briefers every morning.
Flying is truly a joy. I love it. But contrary to what everyone says, I find takeoff and landing to be the EASIEST parts, because those are the only times nobody is riding your ass to change your transponder or read off your position or say the magic words to get somebody's attention.
Slightly mroe on-topic: Flying cars will only become a reality when people can use them without talking to the FAA. If people need clearances and lists of weather minimums memorized, and if people need to be familiar iwth ever part of the plane like a pilot does, it will never happen. It's pretty simple, at least in the near-future, to build a straight-forward easy-to-flow VTOL/STOL aircraft for long-range commuting. But if we can't find a way to either automate some of the traffic or at least better control it (be it by overlaying a virtual visualization of "lanes" on the windshield or whatever else), it won't catch on because it's too complicated. Just like general aviation, which is unfortunately dying a slow death in most of the country.
Yes, but according to a recent article discussed in Slashdot, 50% of all scientific papers are wrong...
Fortunately, that paper is part of the portion that are wrong.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
So I guess in the rest of the world thats more like 22,000 miles. Thats still a heck of a lot of mileage, but not out of the reach of sales reps and long-haul commuters.
But you don't buy a hybrid because they're cheaper, you buy them for that warm, green, fuzzy feeling.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Would welcome not having to actively drive the car. For example, those with long commutes could read their document of choice, eat a meal, have sex with themselves or someone else, etc.
Why waste your time controlling a vehicle in traffic or on wide open highway when you can be doing so many things that are better for you and more enjoyable.