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GM To Introduce Hands-Free Driving In Cadillac Model
cold fjord notes that drivers will be able to switch a new Cadillac model to partial auto-pilot. General Motors Co. (GM), the largest U.S. automaker, will introduce a Cadillac model in two years that can travel on the highway without the driver holding the steering wheel or putting a foot on a pedal. The 2017 Cadillac model will feature "Super Cruise" technology that takes control of steering, acceleration and braking at highway speeds of 70 miles per hour or in stop-and-go congested traffic, Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra said yesterday in a speech at the Intelligent Transport System World Congress in Detroit. GM declined to release the name of the model that will carry the feature. Barra also said GM in two years will become the first automaker to equip a model with so-called vehicle-to-vehicle technology that enables the car to communicate with other autos with similar abilities to warn of traffic hazards and improve road safety. GM will make the V2V feature standard on its 2017 Cadillac CTS sedan, debuting in the second half of 2016, she said. The Super Cruise feature will be on a different Cadillac model and goes beyond similar technology available on some Mercedes-Benz models that operates only at low speeds.
I hope a V2V API is released, I would love to create an app that hops ahead from car to car and reports back the average speed and brake usage of 10 cars 3 miles ahead of me. Real time traffic congestion avoidance would actually be possible. It would also be cool to know that a car 3 ahead of me has just slammed on their breaks (animal/obstacle in the road etc). All kinds of things come to mind.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
What scares me (and I just traded in a 2011 Cadillac CTS Coupe that I've owned for several years) is the way GM often decides to rectify the problems they find!
For example? Have you seen the correction they gave Cadillac owners for the ignition switch recall?! Instead of anything you'd assume GM would do (like replacing the lock cylinder with a newer revision that can't accidentally get twisted out of the "run" position while the gear selector is in "Drive"?), the recall involves issuing owners a new set of keyfobs! That's right! GM decided that by changing the way the physical key attaches to the rectangular fob, they'd give you a setup where it's less likely to put as much leverage on the ignition switch with keys hanging from it! Anyone can do this "recall" themselves with 50 cents worth of keyring parts from the local hardware store!
Thankfully, my CTS had electronic push button start, so that recall didn't even apply to me. But only a week after I traded the car in, I received a different recall notice about a problem where vibrations in the driveline (that apparently worsen as some of the lubricating grease disappears) can trick a side airbag sensor into thinking there was a crash and accidentally going off). BTW, *that* recall notice also informed me not to take my car in right away for it, as GM didn't even have the replacement parts in stock yet for that one!
Are you trolling? Did you watch Rhonda Smith's testimony on YouTube? Did you read the transcript of the testifying expert's testimony from the Oklahoma Bookout trial?
Look, I will agree that a certain percentage - maybe 20%, maybe 50%, hell maybe even 90%, of the incidents are pedal mis-application. But when you consider that every vehicle brand has elderly drivers, and every brand has people who mis-apply pedals, why is the incident rate (by /percentage/, not actual number, i.e. normalizing for sales volume) for Toyota so much higher.
I can't find Michael Barr's testimony transcript right now, but I believe he said that the engine control unit (ECU) could overflow the stack. I don't know if you're an embedded developer or a firmware engineer, but once the stack overflows, all bets are off. And since the stack overflow corrupted critical memory regions, it's pretty clear that if you have a bad day and are the 1-in-a-million "lucky winner" of a stack overflow, you might be in for a wild ride.
It isn't about bug free on first compile, it is about a) failure-tolerant design b) multiple redundancies. We generally trust airplane auto-pilot systems, there is no reason why similar approach could not be used here.
I deal in my day job with both automotive and aerospace clients. They couldn't be more different when it comes to reliability and safety in product design and assembly.
For example, when I start a job for an automotive company they typically require what is called a PPAP which is supposed to establish that the part and the manufacturing systems to build it have been adequately reviewed. Sounds great and in theory is a very good idea. In practice however it is a check-the-box document that is generally required to go into production, produced once, generally never looked at and filed somewhere never to be seen again. It is a waste of everyone's time because no one really actually checks this stuff because doing so is too expensive. Audits are rare and formal quality processes are frequently ignored until something breaks.
Aviation is different. They will seriously crawl up your hind end and regularly audit you. I haven't had an automotive company come in to audit a product in over a decade and I won't unless there is some huge screw up. Aviation has gotten things so reliable that even physicians are taking notes on how to improve their quality in the operating rooms. Automotive isn't even close.