Germany Plans Highway Test Track For Self-Driving Cars

An anonymous reader writes with news about a new project to test autonomous vehicles in Germany. "The German government wants to convert part of the A9 Autobahn in Bavaria into a test-field for advanced car technology. The project is key to ensuring the country's 'digital sovereignty,' according to its transport minister. The track, part of the 'Digitales Testfeld Autobahn' project, would be launched this year, Alexander Dobrindt said on Monday in an interview (in German) with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. The plan involves equipping the road with infrastructure to allow cars to communicate with each other and the road's own sensors to provide necessary data on traffic. 'Cars with assisted driving and later fully-automated cars will be able to drive there,' Dobrindt said. Germany, a major European car producer, wants to have robotic car technology that's not dependent on foreign companies, the minister said. Domestic producers 'won't rely on Google' he stressed."

Comments

Re:Still sounds like early flight...

[TWX]

Inevitably someone will invent new Bott's dots that install like the old ones that can be sighted by the lane tracking system, and contain directional flow, speed, lane number, and other information that can be passively interrogated by RFID, and when they need to be changed, they can be scraped up like existing ones are. Might not be good for urban city streets, but should be good for highways and freeways, and combined with object detection and tracking and a computer's ability to predict speed and direction changes of other cars and of objects, there shouldn't be much of a need for more than that.

I think it's a mistake for cars to communicate with each other. I don't trust programmers to write bug-free and exploit-free software to run on those cars, and I don't want someone's car lying about its speed or other characteristics such that it may cause me to crash.

not sure where we're going though

[nimbius]

Germans are almost five times more likely to use transit at least weekly according to a NatGeo study. 71% of us commute by foot on a regular basis and the rail system is one of the timeliest and most advanced in europe. Our buses? triple articulation is common, bright panoramic windows mandatory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

We're known for the autobahn, which is in my opinion a relic from the weimar republic and doesnt serve well in the 21st century. 1 gallon (roughly four litres) in germany also doesnt come cheap. at $6 a gallon im certainly not interested.

After work when im in the car, can I have a Monchshof Kellerbier? of course not. Can I relax and eat a snack? probably not. Selling America on autonymous cars seems like a no brainer; you drive everywhere there. Unless you're a lorry operator or taxi, its hard to justify Fahrschule and its cost in Germany. I'll keep my Sparpreis and my Bahn pass for now.