Mercedes-Benz's Self-Driving Concept Car Is Here

cartechboy writes: Mercedes-Benz has finally taken the wraps off its autonomous concept car, dubbed the F015 Luxury in Motion Concept. Shown at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas last night, the concept is a self-driving, fully-connected, hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid that touts a vision of driving in the future. Mercedes says this concept is not only a means for getting someone from one point to another, but also a usable space for entertainment or work as well as a platform for communication and interaction. The hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid system is unique in that it produces zero emissions at all times. It consists of a hydrogen fuel cell stack, a lithium-ion battery, and two electric motors. The F015 has a driving range of 124 miles with a fully charged battery, and up to 684 miles with a full tank of hydrogen. While not intended for production, Mercedes shows us that it has the technology today to produce a zero-emission vehicle that can drive itself. In related news, Audi has just shown off an A7 that drove itself 550 miles from San Francisco to Las Vegas for CES.

Comments

Re:When they test these autonomous cars...

[gstoddart]

That's why there's still controls to drive it non autonomously.

And if that is the response, that is why autonomous cars will NEVER work on public roads.

Either the car drives itself 100% of the time, or I drive it 100% of the time.

If someone thinks that you're going to be driving along in your car not paying attention to the road, and suddenly the computer is doing to say "fuck it, I don't know, you do it" they're complete morons.

Human reaction time will not allow a driver who is disengaged to suddenly be in control of the car.

There is no "sometimes the computer drives and sometimes you do", unless it's a complete transition. But when the computer is driving, I should be able to climb in the back and sleep, or read the paper.

Otherwise the entire system is doomed to fail, because it simply won't work in the real world.

I see zero value in an "autonomous" car which is periodically going to decide it isn't responsible. And I'm sure neither Benz nor Google plan on indemnifying you from legal responsibility.

In which case this will always simply be a toy.

Re:"while not intended for production"

[Scottingham]

Man will you be surprised in 3-5 years.

Just look at voice recognition's progress within the last two years alone. It had reached a plateau of about 80% accuracy, even when speaking slowly, clearly, and without regional accent. Now? I can mutter drunkenly and it'll get it more often than not. I can say very local business words like Phydeaux (upscale pet store) and get the spelling right!

It's called machine learning. The more experience/scenarios etc these self driving cars get, the better they'll be.

I'd say I'm as confident as you (but in the opposite direction) that within 10 years computers will out-drive humans in all scenarios. It won't even be close. 360 degree sub-millisecond informational input versus our meatbag eyes and reflexes??

Need the Concept Bus

[gurps_npc]

Concepts cars are worthless, most never get made.

You want to convince me you are SERIOUS about getting into the driverless car? Then build a Concept Bus - or Concept Garbage Truck.

Those are large vehicles that honestly do not need drivers. They are expect to drive slow, not fast and usually travel set routes. Small cities can easily afford to self-insure them, and they won't have to worry quite so much about the stupid technology ignorant laws, as they will be purchased by the people that enforce, if not write the laws. Finally they are already expensive and the cities pay large salaries to people to drive them.

They will in all probability be the very first driverless vehicles we actually see on the road [as soon as we 1) convince the unions to let us and 2) actually get them to work.]

So forget about concept 'cars' and show me a concept bus or concept garbage truck.

Re:Need the Concept Bus

[gurps_npc]

I live in New York City. The city of New York owns over 2,000 collection trucks, not to mention street sweepers, salt spreaders, front end loaders, and support vehicles. Yes, we subcontract out some of the work, but a large mega city like NYC owns and operates it's own trucks. Also, last september, Chicago owns 600 trucks. Both of us are unionized.

But in fact, a private company is a lot EAISER to convince to buy such a device, because they are more focused on the bottom line, rather than appealing to Local 831, USA of the Teamsters (a worthy organization, but they have to put their own interests above those of the city - that's what their members pay them to do.)

A new Garbage Truck can easily cast $500,000. They are large and expensive devices and they typically make over $40,000 a year. For a system that costs $30,000, a small company would easily come out ahead after just one year. If it costs $100k, it takes 3 years.

(Note, you still need employees to LOAD the garbage, you just need 2 men per truck as opposed to 3).

Had a pleasure to see early self-driving footage

[quax]

That was in 1997 when I worked at what later became the KIT.

Back then they tested an early artificial neural net controller under real life conditions on the Autobahn A8. The driver just sat with his arms folded behind the wheel.

This technology has been a long time coming and still lawmakers haven't caught on to it.

Re:"while not intended for production"

[nospam007]

"Humans can recognize things in real world which machine can't without learning first. "

Alas, no. People see what they expect to see, their brain is hardwired that way.
That's why they never see the biker, they expect to see cars only in the mirror.
Machines do not make that mistake.

Re:"while not intended for production"

[Headw1nd]

"And the award for most contrived example goes to...." I kid, I kid.

But seriously, how many human drivers would pass your test? I'd imagine they're do worse that the automated cars by a long shot. Here's why: a human driver in your example is going to to be overwhelmed with information as soon as the snowboarder appears, in this confusion they are likely to forget the dangers of swerving right or left.

In contrast, the machine does not become overwhelmed. The world passes very, very slowly to it. What does it see? Everything in your example, but in a simplified context. It sees the guardrail. The guardrail is a known item to it, it signifies danger. It cannot cross the guardrail. It sees the truck in the other lane, it is a large object and moving quickly, it cannot move into the path of this object. There is a new object in the road, an object that maybe be a person or animal. It may have to collide with this object. It begins to apply the brakes in a controlled fashion, and lightly impacts the snowboarder. All because it wasn't driving 60mph on an icy mountain road like a goddamn idiot.