Volvo Plans To Have Self-Driving Cars In Swedish City of Gothenburg By 2017

Qedward writes "Volvo is starting a pilot project that aims to have 100 self-driving cars on Swedish public roads around the city of Gothenburg by 2017. The project is called 'Drive Me' and is a joint initiative between the Volvo Car Group, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science Park and the City of Gothenburg, Volvo said Monday. Together they will make an effort to eliminate deadly car crashes in Sweden, said Erik Coelingh, technical specialist at Volvo Car Group. In the next few years, Volvo will develop its Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) in its XC90 model. The goal is to have the first self-driving cars available to 100 consumers by 2017, Coelingh said. They will be able to let their cars navigate about 50 typical commuter arteries that include motorway conditions and frequent traffic jams in and around Gothenburg, the country's second largest city."

Comments

I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[WillAffleckUW]

I for one welcome my remote car derby overlords and look forward to using my new 100 car derby racers to crash into buildings and lamp posts with great amusement!

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Ralph Wiggam]

Why would you think that these cars would accept remote commands?

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[WillAffleckUW]

Why would you assume they don't?

The first rule of hack club is assume everyone leaves lots of doors open and try them all.

Find out if the firmware rev and parts have ports they didn't turn off or enabled bluetooth cell links.

Then find a way to store instructions somewhere.

Maybe a traffic sign has a signal - alter or enhance that.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Ralph Wiggam]

It makes zero sense for the vehicle control system to have any connection to anything you mentioned.

But if you want to live in a Hollywood fantasy world where hackers can set off fire sprinklers, that's fine.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[WillAffleckUW]

Mark my words.

You should look at the actual Request For Proposal for the entire scheme, it's part of it.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[ebno-10db]

There are good reasons for wireless connections on aircraft as well - at least as backups but due to weight savings maybe cables will be skipped completely if a wireless backup system has to exist anyway.

The day they start using wireless as the primary means of communication between different critical parts of the plane is the day I stop flying. As for weight saving, fiber optics don't weigh much.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Catbeller]

About two weeks ago, yes. They hacked in.
Also, HERF guns to kill the electronics exist, and GPS spoofing and jamming can create fun fun FUN.

This is a bad idea, and the people promulgating it are not the right kind of engineers. You plan for the least probable bad scenario, not the optimum. Millions of PCS driving themselves around on concrete ribbons at 75+ MPH is a recipe for Blue Screen of Mutilated Bodies.

"You're holding it wrong!" does not work in this context. The situation should not exist. Do not give create scenario, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. If you want a safe system for transporting people without drivers, build trains. That's what trains do. You don't put a jet engine on a skateboard.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[CanHasDIY]

It makes zero sense for the vehicle control system to have any connection to anything you mentioned.

You are correct - it makes no sense for infotainment systems to be connected to the CAN bus.

So, we've established that doing so makes no sense... which does absolutely nothing to change the fact that they are.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Ralph Wiggam]

I recall how some researchers showed how a car (a Nissan, I think) could be hacked through the wireless connection between the air pressure sensors in the wheels and the computer.

Yeah. It allowed evil hackers to access the OBD-II system and read any error codes your car is sending. Because car engineers are not complete idiots, you can't do anything dangerous with it.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/11/cars-hacked-by-researchers-through-wireless-tire-pressire-monito/

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Ralph Wiggam]

Citation please.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Pikewake]

Homicidal hackers or crash-prone PCs would still be improvements compared to the average Gothenburg driver.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[AmiMoJo]

But if you want to live in a Hollywood fantasy world where hackers can set off fire sprinklers, that's fine.

I used to work at a place that made fire alarm/smoke extract systems. The tech was ancient, barely worked and was barely capable of what they were trying to do with it. It suffered from massive feature creep - when it was new most programs were three lines long, simply opening a vent a turning on a fan if there was a fire. Today they try to do all kinds of stuff like day-to-day ventilation tied in to the HVAC system, emergency lift control and remote monitoring.

Yeah, remote monitoring. Needless to say the security is pathetic, bordering on non-existent. In fact if you have physical access to the fire alarm panel a puny lock is all that prevents you from turning on the sprinklers, but thanks to the remote access feature you don't even need that any more.

Re:I for one welcome my Remote Derby Overlords

[Catbeller]

Here we are, time travelling to tomorrow, and here we are:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/03/1919230/rf-safe-stop-shuts-down-car-engines-with-radio-pulse
They nuked the car with an EMP pulse.
Not. To be allowed.

Re: Swedish Capital

[Anonymous Coward]

Clueless geek! The capital of Sweden is Stockholm...

Capital..

[XXeR]

Since when is Gothenburg the capital of Sweden?

Re:Capital..

[jones_supa]

Ravenholm is the best.

Re:Capital..

[H0p313ss]

We don't go to Ravenholm anymore.

Re:Capital..

[unixisc]

Oh, well, at least they didn't put Gutenberg in Sweden

Re:Capital..

[slickepott]

sorry.. I really can't resist.
We present to you.. Clive Alive!

http://youtu.be/lydNxM5KV8M

English with Gothenburg accent. :)

Re:Capital..

[TranquilVoid]

Is that overdone for effect? My only experience with the Gothenburg accent is from the between-song talking by the singer of Dark Tranquillity, and his English sounds very clear (although clearly northern European).

Gothenburg the capital?!?

[pmsr]

Gothenburg is NOT the capital of Sweden, it is the second biggest city. Education is like butter, the less you have the more you spread.

Re:Gothenburg the capital?!?

[Eevee]

Well, it's not the capital NOW...Volvo has got until 2017 to convince the Swedish government to relocate.

Re:Gothenburg the capital?!?

[aliquis]

Actually Karlsborg was supposed to be a backup capital for Sweden.
If you look at this picture I guess you can figure out why:
http://goo.gl/maps/JXSTA

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karlsborg7.jpg
(Built 100-200 years ago.)

Cooler:
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodens_f%C3%A4stning
http://www.rodbergsfortet.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWLBuc12z24
That one is more north though: http://goo.gl/maps/OOvoc

Doubt either can be seen as current today though.

Wanna see more?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G217tJL4_xA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EKUwNUmex0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtAPA5O3qSg

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-PmRUkgyds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv46kbHqJL0)

I don't really know why we show such things today. Sure they have been decided not to be used any more I suppose and the locations are likely already known by the one who would care the most. But anyway, just seem weird =P. Then one need to build new stuff .. (or: Don't look here! It's abandoned!)

Re:Gothenburg the capital?!?

[TangoMargarine]

It's like Svedka: Most Popular Vodka of 2033.

It's Stockholm, not Gothenburg.

[Anonymous Coward]

the capital of Sweden. Or does Volvo also plan to move the parliament?

Re:It's Stockholm, not Gothenburg.

[aliquis]

That's what all the cars are for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_route_E20

Motorway around Gothenburg ..

Re:It's Stockholm, not Gothenburg.

[ebno-10db]

Or does Volvo also plan to move the parliament?

They can do anything they like - Volvo owns the parliament. Oh no, wait, I'm thinking of American politics. Not sure about Sweden.

Where did Summary Come From

[MyLongNickName]

Nowhere in the article is Gothenburg called the capital of Sweden nor is it the capital. Perhaps the submitter is suffering from Gothenburg Syndrome.

Re:Where did Summary Come From

[Tor]

Look at the title of the post. As of now, it STILL reads: "Volvo Plans To Have Self-Driving Cars In Swedish Capital Gothenburg By 2017".

Not to worry about not spotting that, it's commonly known as the Dan Quayle syndrome.

Re:Where did Summary Come From

[MyLongNickName]

Do you know the difference between a summary and an article?

Re:Where did Summary Come From

[MrNemesis]

I think you mean Gothenburg, Finland.

Geography

[bob_super]

Let me be the tenth to point out that Sweden's capital is not Beijing.
It had to be said.

Re:Geography

[Sketchly]

Everyone's capital will soon be Beijing

Re:Geography

[Anti-Social Network]

Everyone's capital will soon be Beige'ing

I dunno, if recent history is any measure, they may soon all be going Rouge

In the USA...

[Anonymous Coward]

they already have that in the capital Mexico City. And in the state of Los Angeles they are soon going to have lots of recharging stations for electrical vehicles! You'll be able to drive all the way to the city of Texas! I think this was all started by president Clooney.

Re: Swedish Capital

[Guppy06]

Everybody knows it's Bern!

Volvo - 2017?

[jcbarlow]

This seems to assume that Volvo will still be in the business of making cars of any sort in 2017. I wouldn't bet on that.

Re:Volvo - 2017?

[Lluc]

Geely will continue to keep Volvo alive for the next couple years. The real deciding factor for Volvo will be whether the Chinese consumer accepts it as a luxury brand and purchases the Chinese-made Volvos. I wouldn't be surprised if Volvo manufacturing starts shifting to China by 2017, however.

Re:Volvo - 2017?

[swb]

That's pretty bleak. The Geely takeover appears to have been largely successful and they're appearing to do a lot more innovating than they did under the lost decade of Ford.

Re:Volvo - 2017?

[Plammox]

Which makes me glad I just made it to acquire a new Swedish Volvo, before the build quality goes Chinese in the coming years. I have a bad feeling Volvo's swan song is fast approaching. :(

Re:Volvo - 2017?

[mjwx]

That's pretty bleak. The Geely takeover appears to have been largely successful and they're appearing to do a lot more innovating than they did under the lost decade of Ford.

What do you expect, its Ford.

I've driven a number of 2012/13 Fords in the last few months from the Australian XR6T to the Thai made Focus and the American Mustang. They're all pretty crap and really have the technological sophistication of a 15 yr old Honda Civic without the ride quality or mechanical reliability. However the number 1 let down of the all the fords were the automatic transmissions. The XR6 and Mustang had the same problem, serious lag when changing gears but the Focus was worse, when this thing shifted gear it could best be described as "bone jarringly violent". Seriously an hour in this thing under normal traffic conditions would make a good back sore as hell, the worst part was because it was an auto, you had no warning when it changed gear until your spine was massaged by a pile driver.

I'm not just having a go at these cars just because they're auto's, they're bad auto's. The Automatic transmissions in a 2013 Chevy Camaro or 2010 Subaru Impreza dont have the same problems (they were positively smooth in comparison). Three different cars, three different tranny's, from three different countries, all terrible. There is a serious problem with Ford at the senior level.

Re:Volvo - 2017?

[swb]

I don't think Volvos use Ford transmissions. My 2007 S80 uses an Aisin transmission, which I think is used on the S60 as well.

It's a six speed with the "shiftmatic" option that lets you manually go up/down a gear if you want, which is great for passing/merging.

Re:Volvo - 2017?

[mjwx]

I don't think Volvos use Ford transmissions. My 2007 S80 uses an Aisin transmission, which I think is used on the S60 as well.

It's a six speed with the "shiftmatic" option that lets you manually go up/down a gear if you want, which is great for passing/merging.

Ford dont build their own transmissions, they buy them from companies who do.

What Ford do is select them and connect them to the engine and drive trains. If Ford screw this up, it doesn't matter how good the transmission is (or if the transmission is not suitable for the engine)

BTW, the manumatic "shiftmatic" or "SelectShift" on the Mustang is exactly the bit that doesn't work. You press the shift up or down button and start counting the seconds before the gearbox remembers it's a gearbox and starts moving cogs around.

Re:Capital?

[bigwheel]

Bad feeling? Wait until we find out that they use Apple maps for navigation.

Unsolved challenges?

[SirGarlon]

I have to admit I have not been keeping up with all the press on self-driving cars. What coverage I do see is short on details of what they actually can and cannot do.

What capabilities would a self-driving car really need to be acceptable, both to passengers and to the general public, that current prototypes lack?

For example, being able to yield to pedestrians at a crosswalk seems pretty important. In my (work) neighborhood we have a couple of crosswalks with no traffic lights, so drivers are supposed to see and stop for people waiting to cross. How well this works depends on the driver, but a "dumb" autonomous car is equivalent to the worst-case human driver -- it wouldn't even try to yield, traffic law notwithstanding.

What else is important? Maybe being able to follow hand signals from a traffic cop. Or at least knowing enough to hand over manual control to the driver when there's a police officer or flagman directing traffic.

Being able to deal with foul weather and icy roads seems important, as well. There could be a big payoff there, as human operators are pretty bad at dealing with ice.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[compro01]

What capabilities would a self-driving car really need to be acceptable, both to passengers and to the general public, that current prototypes lack?

Not requiring a $85,000 LIDAR unit, and about $40k worth of other equipment, plus the cost of the actual vehicle, is probably high on the list of requested features.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[Vanderhoth]

but a "dumb" autonomous car is equivalent to the worst-case human driver -- it wouldn't even try to yield, traffic law notwithstanding.

Where did you get this gem from?

By all accounts autonomous cars are better at spotting potential road hazards, like deer and pedestrians, than people are. Seeing as people can only rely on what they see where as the cars use a whole host of sensors to detect objects that may not even be visible, like when it's foggy and/or at night).

There could be a big payoff there, as human operators are pretty bad at dealing with ice.

Human drivers are bad in every condition. An individual human may be an ok driver, but for every one competent person there's 20 more that should just drive into a tree to preemptively save someone else's life.

It really isn't that hard to make a system that drives better than the average person. People just don't want to accept that computers are, or could be made, better than us at just about everything.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a lot further along than you think and they (being volvo) have your same concern. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/25/131125fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all

That is a long read but much better than some of the hype we get.

"one afternoon, not long after the car show, I got an unsettling demonstration of this from engineers at Volvo. I was sitting behind the wheel of one of their S60 sedans in the parking lot of the company’s American headquarters in Rockleigh, New Jersey. About a hundred yards ahead, they’d placed a life-size figure of a boy. He was wearing khaki pants and a white T-shirt and looked to be about six years old. My job was to try to run him over."

"As the car sped up—fifteen, twenty, thirty-five miles an hour—the warning chime sounded, but I kept my foot off the brake. Then, suddenly, the car ground to a halt, juddering toward the boy with a final double lurch. It came to a stop with about five inches to spare."

What else is important? Maybe being able to follow hand signals from a traffic cop. Or at least knowing enough to hand over manual control to the driver when there's a police officer or flagman directing traffic.
If we could hit say 80-90% of use case it would turn our world upside down. For example interstate driving and long haul driving. Most trucks are idle 13 hours a day. If they could increase the usage to 20 hours a day we would need less trucks and decrease shipping costs.

One thing for sure it will kill the radio star :) (think about it)

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[ebno-10db]

Not requiring a $85,000 LIDAR unit, and about $40k worth of other equipment

That's Sergey Brin's hobby project. An actual car company's product might be different.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[0123456]

If we could hit say 80-90% of use case it would turn our world upside down.

Uh, no.

It has to be 100% usable, or we'll be back to the AF447 case where the autopilot hands control back to the 'pilot', because it doesn't know what to do, and they crash because they haven't been watching what's happening. And, in the case of a car, you won't have two minutes to figure out what to do before you crash, you'll probably have two seconds.

That doesn't mean it has to be usable in all road conditions, though; I'm guessing a viable 'cruise control' for the open highway would be much easier than town driving, and could eliminate many truck drivers.

But, for the average driver, if you can't sit in the car drinking beer and sending text messages, what's the point?

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[SirGarlon]

Where did you get this gem from?
By all accounts autonomous cars are better at spotting potential road hazards, like deer and pedestrians, than people are.

If you read what I actually wrote, the problem is one of identifying that a pedestrian standing on the sidewalk has the right of way and traffic should stop. That's not a road hazard. The pedestrian is not even in the road.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[ebno-10db]

By all accounts autonomous cars are better at spotting potential road hazards

The OP's second sentence was "What coverage I do see is short on details of what they actually can and cannot do.". So what sort of "accounts" have you heard, Google hype? (now augmented by Volvo). Any details on conditions or varieties of road hazards tested (not just the ones they successfully detected), not to mention many other details without which this is all meaningless hype? How does it do in a heavy snowfall? Oh, hold it, being in CA Google may not have done much testing with that. Has Volvo taken that into account? Does it ever snow in Sweden?

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[Reapman]

Just curious - assuming the car can determine who is a traffic cop - as you seem to imply by your response to the GP - how do you stop a teenager on the side of the road from holding his hand out like a traffic cop - something any driver would ignore, but how would the car? Are we installing some wireless signal in all cop uniforms? Can that be hacked? What if a cop doesn't have his special uniform on does the car just ignore him? Do we also replace all traffic cops with robots?

I'm tired of this whole "cars will be safer once machines drive because they never make mistakes" argument that seems to be common here. For many months a year where I drive the road is covered by snow and ice, and you basically have to "best guess" where the lanes are. How will cars handle that? Whats the safety order - do we dodge to avoid the kid, but force ourselves into an oncoming semi, or does the car weigh hitting the kid as an acceptable loss?

Maybe someones solved all of this and has brought the cost down so everyone can afford one - but I've seen minimal evidence so far. Just that R"obot Cars are the future and I should embrace them and stop asking questions..."

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[CanHasDIY]

By all accounts autonomous cars are better at spotting potential road hazards, like deer and pedestrians, than people are.

Pretty sure that's just a Law of Averages thing; there are hundreds of millions of non-autonomous cars being operated around the US every day, compared to a few thousand auto-cars. If the numbers were switched (hundreds of millions of auto-cars vs a few thousand diver-operated ones), I'd wager the percentages of who's better at what would be swapped as well.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[ebno-10db]

What else is important?

Wow, one simple contrived test was demonstrated. Was there any background clutter? Snow or rain? Was the dummy even moving? Detecting a single target in a clear field at a distance of 100 yards is about as easy as you get. Consider me unimpressed.

We do these sort of demos all the time when developing products. It just means "we got something kind of working in some circumstances", and there's a lot of work to be done to turn it into a reliable full-functioning design. Any engineer should know that, and when we demo stuff internally, we make no bones about it. Dealing with gullible members of the press is another matter. They love hype, because they need something interesting to write about. "Nothing interesting" is not something editors like to hear.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[Kjella]

Where did you get this gem from? By all accounts autonomous cars are better at spotting potential road hazards, like deer and pedestrians, than people are. Seeing as people can only rely on what they see where as the cars use a whole host of sensors to detect objects that may not even be visible, like when it's foggy and/or at night).

Spotting them, I think so too. With an IR camera they're much better at picking out elk and deer and whatnot else in the dark on forest roads than humans. Figuring out who's simply walking by on the sidewalk and who's going to make a panic dash across the crossing - or not the crossing - to catch his bus or is absent-mindedly talking on his cell phone on the other hand without going into ultra-paranoid mode will be tougher.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[ebno-10db]

What do you think the small fleet of self driving cars do now when they encounter something they do not know what to do? They pull to the side of the road stop and turn on the machine that goes ping.

According to the article they tell the human to take control.

As for pulling over to the side of the road, how does it do that from the middle of a crowded five lane highway, in the snow, when it's already confused about what to do? What does it do on those urban highways that have no shoulder?

Dont know about you but most of the accidents I have been in happened in 1-2 seconds. I did not have minutes to think about what was going on. If 2-3 mins were true auto accidents would be near 0.

And so you completely missed what the GP was saying, including where he said that most car accidents happen in 1-2 seconds? Where is it that you disagree with him? He said many aircraft accidents take minutes to unfold, hence allowing the human pilots to take over when the autopilot says "beats me what's happening - good luck!"

But read this ...

An excellent example of writing about technical issues in the popular press. Amongst other things it mentions the important fact that one of the engineers is very tall. Oh, and all of them are really, really smart. Technical details are a little short on the ground though.

You are thinking too narrow. Why would I drive to the store? I can send my car and someone can load the stuff up.

But if the car goes into fail safe mode and stops on the side of the road, the beer will get warm while you're waiting.

Re:Unsolved challenges?

[Vanderhoth]

Figuring out who's simply walking by on the sidewalk and who's going to make a panic dash across the crossing - or not the crossing - to catch his bus or is absent-mindedly talking on his cell phone on the other hand without going into ultra-paranoid mode will be tougher.

Something human drivers can't do anyway. If a pedestrian bolts out and there's nothing an autonomous car can do to avoid them, reaction time measured in milliseconds, then there is nothing a human with much slower reaction time, measured in seconds, will be able to do to avoid them. I'd also trust an autonomous car to behave better than a human would, so many times I've seen a person slam on their breaks to avoid someone or something in the road only to spin out of control and end up on a side walk or off in the woods causing significantly more damage than just hitting the person that wasn't smart enough to pay attention to the ton of metal hurdling down the road at them.

People seem to think avoiding random or unexpected obstacle is something only humans can do, but it's so common place for humans to fail at it, it doesn't even make the news above the local level anymore. My city has a HUGE problem with pedestrians getting hit, just in crosswalks and not counting ones that are jay walking. Part of the problem as I see it is pedestrians are trained to think they have the right of way at all times so they don't bother thinking about if a car is watching for them, autonomous cars might change this and pedestrians will be required *by law* to only cross at designated locations after activating the proper signal.

The other part of the problem is drivers don't pay enough attention and don't follow the rules, which wouldn't be an issue with autonomous cars. It'll be really hard to explain how a vehicle with millisecond reaction time and sensors out the wazoo designed to avoid obstacles in front of them didn't yield the right of way when you gave the appropriate signal, flashing lights, hands out, someone standing facing the road at a crosswalk, all things I've seen human drivers mostly just ignore anyway.

Baring electronic/software failure, which can be linked back to maintenance team, or lack there of, or manufacture defect, or tampering. So nothing different from existing cars, with the exception that the operator won't be at fault for being over tired, not paying attention, not following the rules, being overly aggressive, refusing to yield the right of way, being drunk, and the list goes on.

Re: Swedish Capital

[bobbied]

Clueless geek! The capital of Sweden is Stockholm...

No.. It's the Swedish Krona.. Unless you are talking about the *location* of the capital of Sweden...

Those backwards Swedes

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

"By 2017 it should be possible for consumers to read the paper or have a cup of coffee behind the wheel, Volvo said"

I see commuters reading the paper all the time. USA! USA!

Re:Those backwards Swedes

[cusco]

No, US newspapers still have Sports and Celebrity sections.

Why would I care about hot air

[CBravo]

If I want to be near hot air I would be flying gliders in Australia instead of listening to marketing BS.

Amazing future

[jones_supa]

Cars driving themselves, flying drones delivering Amazon packages... Very exciting stuff.

Re: Swedish Capital

[OlRickDawson]

Everyone knows that the 'capital' of Sweden is 'S'. You can see it right there....

what happens when the selected roads

[Joe_Dragon]

has any kind of change ranging from planed work that I hope get's into the data base in time to WE NEED TO X RIGHT NOW.

Re: Swedish Capital

[SecurityTheatre]

Actually, the *location* of the capital of Sweden is 59.3294 N, 18.0686 E.

The capital is most definitely Stockholm.

Re:Capital?

[bobbied]

Yea, even Siri is going to be reduced to babbling.... "Siri, show me the way to the capital, Gothenburg!" What's she going to say?

"I'm sorry, you're nuts!"

"There is no destination for your request. "

"Destination is not available, try again.."

Re: Swedish Capital

[aaarrrgggh]

Must be a bastardized translation or something; Volvo's headquarters (prior to purchase by the Chinese anyway) was Gothenburg.

Re:Capital?

[Luckyo]

Actually, she'll just guide you to Uppsala.

Re:and prisons filled with people who need a home,

[Ralph Wiggam]

I propose that we break all of the steal powered looms so that the textile mills have to hire back the unemployed weavers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Re:No, Bad. No computer driven cars. Stop now.

[Ralph Wiggam]

Self-driving cars are point-to-point trains for wealthy people

And cars used to be loud, dirty, playthings of the rich and were widely criticized by the horse-riding public. Fortunately not everyone is as short-sighted as you.

Good news for Volvo owners

[wcrowe]

This will be great for those few days out of the year when your Volvo isn't in the shop.

Re:Good news for Volvo owners

[Plammox]

[citation needed]

Re:Good news for Volvo owners

[Zynder]

[humor needed]

Re:Good news for Volvo owners

[Plammox]

If I actually had a sense of humour, I'd be driving one of the General Motors-derivatives (Vauxhall, Opel, Saab,...). That's enough to extinguish any sort of optimism.

Re:No, Bad. No computer driven cars. Stop now.

[wcrowe]

Easy to build? Really? And how is a modern conventional car any safer from such a device?

Nice

[Hamsterdan]

Now we only need a robot Jean Claude Van Damne

Re: Swedish Capital

[TangoMargarine]

The capitol building is in the capital and the capital is Stockholm. Stockholm is the capital city.

Re:Capital?

[TangoMargarine]

Don't look now, but Washington, D.C. is only number 24 in the U.S.

Re:No, Bad. No computer driven cars. Stop now.

[TangoMargarine]

We're trying to mate the 1950s with a drone

Now I'm picturing Humping Robot and...what was a stereotypical person in the 50s?

Re:No, Bad. No computer driven cars. Stop now.

[TangoMargarine]

Anyone know what a HERF gun is? A EM pulse cannon or gun. Easy to build. Aim and fire, fry the electronics of the car, instant crash.

To be fair, if you hit a current car with an EMP, I assume you'd lose power steering, which would make things mighty interesting. Don't know how the automatic transmission and other parts would react...but at least this is actually on the ground to begin with.

they crashed a hunter killer drone in a test by telling the GPS receiver that the drone was 500 feet higher than it was. It dived into the ground.

IIRC they did that in Die Hard 2 as well. If you had zero visibility and your instruments told you you were 500 feet off the deck, would you do any better? But then we're getting into the territory of instances where pilots didn't trust their instruments when they were actually correct and ended up crashing....What alternative would you propose to said GPS system? A rangefinding laser to find height off the ground? That wouldn't work well either in a lot of circumstances.

To summarize, complicated software is complicated. And humans are generally stupid :)

Re:Gothenburg is a Swedish Capital

[BancBoy]

Insightful? Informative? Underrated? Anyone?

Re:Capital?

[mangu]

Volvos will use Apple maps?

I have a bad feeling about this. I don't think the Apple maps for the Swiss capital, Gothenburg, are up to date.

Re:Gothenburg is a Swedish Capital

[TheInternetGuy]

Insightful? Informative? Underrated? Anyone?

I don't have mod points today, so I'll guess I'll have to go with.... 'Anyone'?
Srsly though, the dude is right.

Re:Gothenburg is a Swedish Capital

[TheInternetGuy]

Move to strike! Parent got re-parented.

But it will be against Sharia

[gelfling]

And Sweden's going Sharia before 2017

Interesting

[bluegutang]

Rumor has it that self-driving vehicles currently work extremely well in normal weather conditions, but not yet in unusual weather, particularly snow.

You wouldn't get to test that much in Silicon Valley. But you definitely would in Sweden.

So it will be interesting to see how this works out. If there are no problems, we're that much closer to being able to use self-driving cars anywhere.

Re: Swedish Capital

[unixisc]

Wouldn't it be spelt 'Berne'? 'Bern' is the German spelling. I wonder how it's spelt in Swedish?

Why lookie here, they killed a car with an EMP gun

[Catbeller]

http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/12/03/1919230/rf-safe-stop-shuts-down-car-engines-with-radio-pulse