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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.""
I look forward to the day when we relinquish all control of our cars once we enter the freeway. Scientific papers have found that traffic throughput could be increased up to 918.49% while reducing fatalities by a factor of 17.5!
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Can I push the gas pedal down hard enough to triumph over the computer system? I would really hate to see a computer have more control than the human. We've seen plenty of movies, where that happened.
I know of one such event where a guy set the cruise control in his Winnebago and then got up and when back to the kitchen to make a sandwich. Truth, Fiction, Urban Legend, or Darwin Award. Your guess is as good as mine.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
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.
It's 2008. Give me my f*ing flying car instead.
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
Will this car also drive itself to Alaska, drill for oil, refine the crude into gasoline, and then fill up?
Otherwise, I'm holding out for a Mr. Fusion.
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!
Car drives you!
It seems as if the ultimate (admittedly, far off) goal of such developments is to establish a virtually automated mass transit system using today's road networks. When cars automatically take the correct routes, make correct lane changes, and communicate with each other to ensure safe distances and traffic queues the joy of driving, for those who value it, will be essentially lost. I can't help but wonder if the joy of driving will be entirely lost in 20-50 years.
Business Voyeur
since we last had self driving cars. Friggen amazing that it took this long to re-invent the horse.
Oh well, what the hell...
...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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And not only that, but what's holding the GM version up is that they're still trying to engineer it to fail as soon as the warranty runs out.
Chrysler is OWNED BY Mercedes.
Also, gone will be the 'sporty' designs in cars, especially the dash. There are already designs for cars with 'couplings', so they work like train carriages in built-up areas. Your car will resemble a small train compartment more than a Ferrari.
On the other hand, at least it will rid the world of this lot.From the article:
For example, self-steering cars are currently illegal in most European countries. Carmakers want the law changed to allow them, but they are also keen not to be held legally responsible for any accidents which result. Drafting legislation which would make it attractive for carmakers to introduce the technology, but still allow some recourse for those hurt if something goes wrong, could prove tricky.
I see, they want to build self-steering cars but take no responsibility for what they have built going wrong.
I think alerting systems are a great idea - if you think I'm shifting lanes or following too close or not noticing a braking driver in front of me, by all means help me out.
But don't take away control based on incomplete sensor input. The distance that it is safe to follow another car depends on conditions. What if you reach a sharp bend and that other car can corner a lot better than you? What if you stop paying attention to the road ahead because the car is following another, and that other car fails to notice traffic stopping too quickly ahead? That car hitting anything else probably means you're going to hit it.
The consider the whole business of automatically following lanes as the GM car does. Has no-one out there seen roads after construction is through that have remains of old lines? What happens when a car starts AUTOMATICALLY correcting your steering to follow the old lines instead of the new?
To give auto makers a free Get-Out-Of-Jail card because they have the hubris to think they can build something that really drives better than a human is madness. Let them try but they must pay for failure so they are properly diligent as to issues that may arise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
wow. You should Never talk again. Ever. Ask your friends to join you in on that too. Thanks.
Someone with mod points, break this person's karma.
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.
I hear concern that it MIGHT happen is why they stopped calling it "cruise control" and started calling it the more accurate "(automatic) speed control".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Maybe, but the thing I'm really interested in is not can the software be bug-free, but can it be more reliable than humans?
The article says:
The funny thing is that I feel a lot less safe because other people, people I have no control over, are in control of their vehicle. The sad fact is that so many people are so mind-numbingly stupid behind the wheel of a car that I would much rather trust software that's slightly buggy and causes a few fatal crashes a year than humans who are outright stupid that cause almost 40,000 fatal crashes a year. And yes, if that means giving up control of my car so that other people have to give up control of theirs, I'm okay with that.
Now you and your friends can get drunk smoke crack while cruising along the high street.
Should it have a "Drive it like you stole it" option for the car thiefs.
It was a short story called "The Roads Must Roll" and it was by Robert Heinlein.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
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.
I think you would be more lucky if you asked to have dedicated lanes set aside for the Robot cars.
Some lanes for the advanced cars, the rest for older cars and people who want to drive manually.
Everyone wins.
Remember folks, slashdot doesn't have a -1 "disagree" moderation!
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...
Yep, and GM is also pioneering hydrogen powered vehicles...
... while the Japanese are (again) dominating with hybrids.
Where's your nearest Hydrogen pumping station ?
Hydrogen is a pipe dream, and a dangerous one at that -- extracting hydrogen from water (destroying the water in the process) is a recipe for the end of life on Earth. The returned water is, as I understand it, less than what is net removed.
If GM continues to live in the Surreal World the price that will be paid will be the ultimate demise of The General. It's not as unimaginable as you might think. The analysts say the clock is already ticking...
Regards, Lex
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....
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.
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)
70% of statistics are made up.
If a truly self-driving car ever does come around, it would not only revolutionize our lives in terms of commuting, but also in the movement of goods. Why even have stores when you could let customers select what they want online and then immediately dispatch a cartload of goods to their house? If this comes around the time of some sort of renewable electric car, we may find ourselves living in ever more sprawling low-density cities. What trouble is it to live 50 miles outside of town when you can get into town in no time while reading the paper in your own private vehicle?
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.