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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.
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??
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"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.