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Nissan Plans To Sell Self-Driving Cars By 2020
Lucas123 writes "Nissan today said it will begin demonstrating autonomous vehicle technology on its all-electric Leaf this year, and plans to begin selling multiple models of self-driving cars by 2020. Nissan said it's already building an autonomous drive proving ground in Japan. Its goal is availability across the model range within two vehicle generations. The car company, which is among several others and Google in developing autonomous driving tech, is currently working with top universities, including MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford and The University of Tokyo, to develop its self-drive technology."
No more tailgating, left lane hogging, pulling out without indicating, running red lights, drunk driving or any of that other stuff the meat-based drivers keep on doing.
Free up the roads for people who don't see driving as a chore and make an effort to drive properly.
No sig today...
So because the car's going to follow the law, you're upset?
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Why wouldn't Uber buy their fleet of cars from Nissan, instead of from Google?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
What happens when every car uses lidar, or some other range finding technology? Won't they interfere with each other and cause problems?
This is a better headline. To those of us over 35, we have been trained to think of 2020 as a long time from now.
All these cars will religiously follow the speed limit, boxing up roads and not permitting those of us who are in a rush to get around them. The road rage will cause accidents, I guarantee that.
Learn to let go, then. The problem isn't the law-abiding the drivers. It's the high strung ones.
I've driven in states where the standard is to speed heavily, and I've driven in states where the standard is to go the speed limit. In my experience, there's a lot less road rage when people are going the speed limit. There's less variation in speed when everyone is following the same standard, which means less people tailgating, less lane changes to pass, and less people cutting each other off.
For me, eliminating the "must get there quicker" mentality sharply decreased my aggression when driving. I am a *much* better driver now than I was when I was younger and treating the highway like a personal race track and getting frustrated when someone got in the way of going the speed I wanted to go. Being forced to go the speed limit taught me to chill and let go of the little irritations that are the seeds of road rage.
So, I say bring on the fleet of law-abiding autonomous vehicles. Maybe it'll teach the rest of you to cool your frigging heads. (And to get off my lawn!)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The main obstacle to self-driving cars isn't technological, it's cultural. Even if they get a commercially viable product on the road in 2020, it'll be at least a generation of these things being on the roads before people become comfortable enough with the technology to trust their lives to it en mass. And that doesn't even speak to the costs involved. High end luxury cars get the tech first and it trickles down, eventually. Factor that in with the cultural issues and we're probably not going to see widespread adoption of self-driving cars until 2050 or beyond.
"On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
Cars in the left lane are supposed to follow the law too.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You are causing the accidents. YOU are rushing. YOU are driving unsafe. YOU are risking other behind you.
It's not everyone else fault you can't get to work on time. If you cant control it, then you should have your license revoked until you have attended anger management classes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is no rule that says the left lane is for speeding.
The left lane is NOT a speeding lane. It is not you personal driving lane. It is not their responsibility that you can't drive legally.
Suck it up and stop causing accident, you jerk.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I would recommend autonomous car makers stay out of the litigious US market initially, and focus their initial launch on some place like Singapore.
It has:
1) No Snow, which is still causes difficult problem for autonomous vehicles.
2) Highly structured environment. It is a nation that essentially consists of a single, highly-organized city.
3) That single city has a government that operates as a sovereign entity, and can adapt its legal framework to accommodate the cars.
4) That sovereign entity has demonstrated itself to be business friendly (sometimes at the expense of the individual).
5) Has car owners who are accustomed to accepting extensive government regulation and oversight.
Much as I would love the idea of having a self-driving car myself, I can't see how such a thing is compatible with American Society.
Autonomous cars still have a minimum stopping distance, and it would be unwise for an autonomous car to tailgate even another autonomous car since unexpected situations which can force an emergency brake (such as a child running out onto the road) can still arise. If the car ahead had to stop unexpectedly, a distance of only a few centimeters would not be sufficient for your own vehicle to safely stop in time, even though you've taken human reaction time entirely out of the equation. I expect, instead, that minimum car spacing may still be reduced... but still somehow be a function of the posted speed limit.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Freight hauling would be a great use-case for these ... no mandatory rest periods which means much more effective use of time getting from location to location. If larger roads had dedicated freight lanes where the effective speed limit could be lower, then the extra "drive time" could be used to conserve fuel and road damage by operating freight vehicles at something a bit lower than typical highway speed.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
"By 2060 it will be illegal for a human to drive a vehicle in the USA".
My prediction made in 2012.
I am a nobody so no one will notice.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Once people figure out that you can have sex in the car on the way to work only the lonely will still be driving.
Road Kill for dinner.
The amazing autonomous James Bond "Q" car will catch it, skin it, and roast it over the car engine while you drive.
When you get home, dinner will be ready to be served.
Yum, yum.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It probably depends on your jurisdiction... where I live, you'd *NEVER* get a ticket for "impeding flow of traffic" if you were driving the speed limit, regardless of which lane you were in.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Autonomous cars will allow tailgating and higher speeds, with much less risk, raising the effective traffic load to 3 cars per second, which is a 50% increase in throughput, without adding more lanes, going to double-decker limos for everyone, etc.
No, they won't, outside of Ideal Driverless Car Utopia.
What happens when the car at the front slams on its brakes, and your car can't stop as fast because the pads are worn and the owner hasn't bothered to keep up with regular maintenance?
Oops. You crash. Then many of the cars behind crash too.
Simple. If the animal is small enough to cause no damage on impact, hit it and keep going. If it is big enough to damage the vehicle, don't hit it.
So when it sees a baby in the road, it will run over them and keep going.
Sounds good.
Will autonomous vehicles have to have a driver on board? If not then delivery companies would love the idea of sacking all theirs. The public might not like having to fetch their parcels from a truck pulled up on the street outside their house, rather than have them delivered to the door, but meh.
Another thought, how long after the technology becomes commonplace before the first non-suicide truck bomb? If I can think it up, then presumably the security apparatus can also, and is right now considering this possibility; it'll be interesting to see what rules and restrictions come into force to try and prevent it.
There is no rule that says the left lane is for speeding.
The left lane is NOT a speeding lane. It is not you personal driving lane. It is not their responsibility that you can't drive legally.
Suck it up and stop causing accident, you jerk.
Reading this is funny considering that for me, the left lane is the outside lane.
But your point stands. There is no designated speeding lane. Some laws dictate that you cant be in the inside lane if you're not overtaking but this varies.
Generally speaking though, on any dual carriageway (multi lane road) its just common god damn courtesy to not drive in the inside lane without a good reason (overtaking, turning, etc...). Courtesy isn't codified in law, but it's still a good bloody idea. The inside lane is not anyone's personal lane, be it for speeding or going slow.
Then again, courtesy is not that common
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
If we had truly autonomous cars, we wouldn't need a car per person. One car can take you to your park-and-ride, your wife to work, your son to middle school, and your daughter to elementary school an hour later. Then, it can pick each person up and take them home. And just in case scheduling conflicts, you can team up with your brother and sister to form a 3-car system. Team up with more people, and you can start carpooling and sending the nearest available car to whoever needs it like a taxi service. Get a city involved, and you'll have the more adaptive and cheap bus system in the world, that picks you up on your doorstep and transfers you from car to bus with perfect timing. Routes and transfer points will change dynamically to route traffic most efficiently. Bus-only lanes and traffic light control will ensure calculations are accurate for the majority of the route. Even if you drove like a maniac, you'd have trouble beating an autonomous system that synchs all the traffic lights to its benefit, drove speed limit on the bus-only lane, and does a perfect transfer to car to take you from doorstep to doorstep. Or maybe it wouldn't be that hard because there will be so few cars on the road that owning a car would be like having your own private Jet.
That's my issue with the whole thing. What I really want is selective autopilot. I'd love to have the option of putting my car in autopilot on the interstate and just taking a nap or playing with my kids int he back. We do lots of 500 mile 1-way trips back to grandma's house ... it would be great to just fill up the family truckster the night before and head off at midnight, everybody sleeping along the way.
It'd kind of be like hibernation during interstellar travel ... except mundane and boring :)