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Ford Plans a Fleet of Fully Autonomous Cars Operating in a Ride-Hail Service By 2021 (recode.net)
Ford will mass-produce autonomous vehicles without steering wheels by 2021, Ford chief executive Mark Fields said today at the Ford Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto, California. Recode reports:Fields announced that the company is working toward launching a fleet of commercial, level 4 (one level below a completely autonomous system, in which drivers don't have to be engaged) vehicles in a ride-hail service by 2021. The details of that ride-hail service -- such as which company Ford will partner with to operate it -- still haven't been determined. As part of that effort, Ford is investing in Velodyne, a self-driving tech company, and is working with three other startups. Ford has acquired Israel-based computer vision and machine learning company SAIPS, struck up an exclusive licensing agreement with machine vision company Nirenberg Neuroscience LLC and, as previously announced, invested in 3-D mapping startup Civil Maps.
With much fewer cars on the roads, I'm not sure how they think they'll be able to maintain them. And with fewer insurance customers the premiums will probably explode upward for those of us that do want to continue to drive.
Thank you for choosing Johnny Cab
But then it is Ford.
Your Car in the Cloud.
Makes sense given the sentiment everyone seems to have about not owning anything these days. Renting living space is way up, companies aren't buying their own computers and data centers anymore, companies don't even own their own core assets like buildings and office furniture. Everything is a creaky tower of outsourcing from the coffee pots to the building management systems.
I'd actually be happier if Ford ended up doing this first instead of Google. I love the idea of a self-driving car, but don't really like the idea of Google having full access to yet another facet of everyone's lives.
It won't be too long after such driverless 'services' are implemented when the organs of state security and corporations (but I repeat myself) will run real-time scans on a customers' finances; any found debts, back taxes, or warrants (real and imagined) will alter their 'final destination' to debtors' prison.
What? It was all there in the half-point font EULA.
So in (less than) five years they're going to perfect (almost) fully autonomous driving, when today's efforts are so ass poor they can barely cope with highways, let alone all the crap that happens in the middle of the city?
This is almost as laughable as Tesla's time frames.
The only way they'll have this ready in 5 years is if the cars are restricted to their own physically segregated lane (by which I mean a barrier, not a painted line) and even then it'll be a functional disaster.
Just to manufacture the machinery to build the vehicles will take massive amounts of oil. Just one tire takes something like 11 gallons of oil.
This is not useful nor is it safe nor is it green. It is job creation and Wall Street equity pumping. No steering wheel means your cars would rely on what? Computers. Any idea who will want control over those computers? The same ones who want control over your computers right now.
Fucking dead spies.
I know we all want cool automation, but just like Tesla is seeing the litigators won't let it happen. Fix laws and maybe.
Simple fact: Google cars get into wrecks too, and they are not doing any Freeway driving. The cars are doing 10 miles under the speed limit on roads (probably to increase safety), which causes some of the wrecks. Try driving down El Camino at 25 MP/h because "Google Car" and you will become impatient too.
Yup, I'm a cynic but also a realist. Current laws are going to stop automakers long before anything is in widespread use.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
(This is not totally all my comment, but based on something I saw on CL of all places)
In olden days when someone was driving their car and had a heart attack and died, the car would veer off the road and just crash. But instead in the age of driverless cars that dead body is simply going to be served up at the destination, albeit somewhat ripe.
Imagine the fun when little Johnny runs out to greet the car that brought his dear granddad to Johnny's birthday party!
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While I applaud them for picking a specific use case to concentrate on, I wish they would have picked something that transported non-people like packages, food, etc. In this sense it would reduce risk (particularly for a 5 year operating development timeframe where Ford is frantically hiring people because it's got nada) and allow well defined routes. It allows tailoring the scope nicely and opens the door open to other mitigations that may ease various state and local governments concerns (like adding yellow flashers to delivery vehicles). Governments do not like new ideas very well, and you should never underestimate any government's ability to say "this makes me uneasy, so no".
CAPTCHA: unmanned
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Have a splendid day folks. No worries, we at the FBI are working hard to protect you from the moles we don't know about yet.
... Introduce cars passengers can't control in 2021, see them crushed by insurance lawsuits in 2022. Unless, of course, they can totally change liability law before that.
Is on a closed circuit loop, e.g. between airport terminals and hotels, or convention centre buildings. The roads can be dedicated and one-way, the cars don't have to drive fast and there can be some guy in a booth to take over if the system breaks down.
It's a serious question.
We have all these promises of what AI is going to accomplish (here's an explanation of driverless levels, level 4 means you'll be able to sleep in the back seat of the car. Our technology isn't close to that point yet). Even if driverless technology existed at that level right now (it doesn't), it would still take them a couple years of engineering before everything worked well enough to release.
But with all these promises, if they aren't delivered, there could easily be another AI backlash into winter.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually, in the course of asking this question, I found my own answer and will share with others.
The NHTSA has levels 0 through 4, with 0 being fully driver-controlled (not even ABS, which is level 1) and level 4 being fully computer-controlled.
The SAE uses levels 0 through 5. Level 4 is:
The automated system can control the vehicle in all but a few environments such as severe weather. The driver must enable the automated system only when it is safe to do so. When enabled, driver attention is not required.
So, I suppose this means that during bad weather, the service would be unavailable.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Yeah, there are rare occasions where companies do fuck people, but nobody is making people push the autopilot button in a Tesla now. The way you framed your question tells me more than I need to know about your political leanings, just in case you care.
How do we know that laws are in need of work? Because we have, and have had for decades, Lawyers who chase ambulances and nitpick to make money and cause harm to consumers and businesses in the process. Since I know you will attempt to fabricate reality by claiming nuh-uh, here is an easy citation.
Laws are a problem, as is rampant ignorance and cowardice.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Death and slower traffic for all!
Driving is harder and more "quirky" than any computer will ever be able to comprehend. Don't believe me? The best computers on the planet, after countless revisions and countless years of testing (i.e., our brains), still aren't perfect when it comes to the task. It is comical to me to see engineers again believe they are "more clever" and will overcome everything if enough tech. is thrown at it. Mark my words, this will be a slow-motion clogging of our roadways as such cars get befuddled by a simple plastic bag blowing about the freeway.
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
Since most states are trying to keep Tesla out of direct sales, do they really think they'll be allowed to do this without going through a dealer?
In 5 years we still won't have 'fully autonomous, self-driving' cars, they'll still be full of bugs and flaws, and there's no fucking way I'd step into one and have no manual control over direction and speed.
* * * DO NOT WANT !!! * * *
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
More than any other change in the car industry, autonomous taxi services would make things massively better. Once you make it cheaper and more convenient for most people to use the taxi service than to own your own car, then:
You can customize your car to the journey. One-person 3km trip? Hail a short-range one-person electric car. No need to drive a big car just because you need it once in a while. This leads to a massive reduction in average vehicle size on the roads, and big reductions in energy consumption.
Most people won't need driveways and garages anymore. Extend your house or put in a garden.
Large reduction in the need for on-street and off-street parking. Replace on-street parking with pickup/dropoff bays and/or bike lanes and/or more general lanes.
On one hand, this would reduce public transport usage by providing a more convenient alternative for many people. On the other hand, this would increase public transport usage by reducing instances where people drive from A to B only because they'll need their car to get from B to C. Both of those cases are wins.
Once you make it cheaper and more convenient
It'll never be more convenient than using your own car or calling a taxi driven by a real person.
Cheaper? That depends on how often it's used. Outside of college campuses and urban areas, people use their cars a couple of times a day; it'll be a challenge for this to be useful by commuters because of the sheer number of vehicles that have to be available for a couple of hours each day, then sitting idle the rest of the day. Sounds like a niche that replaces Uber to me.
....when you are in one of these steeringwheelless cars, and a carload of gangbangers pulls up to you wanting to rob/rape/murder you? No steeringwheel = no chance for evasive maneuvers.
people still have garages and drive ways... I'm thinking we'll see companies "renting" out those spaces from regular users in exchange for a discount on the transportation services...
You agree to allow one maybe two cars park at your house, maybe hook them up to the power grid if they are electric and they let you use it sometimes.... some one in your neighborhood orders a cab, that car disconnects from power and drives over to their house...
That car needs scheduled matinance? it drives it self to the shop...
But you can "host" that car for them in off peak periods because no one is going to want to have a parking lot full of cars, and no a centralized location for those cars means longer wait times for pickups compared to a distributed location...
Yes, you may want to think that this announcement comes from the Ford engineering department as the result of solving a number of intractable problems related to autonomous vehicles.
Sorry. It's from the marketing department. Nothing has been solved, but the important thing is that even before Slashdot got hold of the story, many others did. The name Ford has again been associated with headlines which will make Ford owners feel good, and Ford investors will be happy. It's 'obviously' not just marketing hype because Ford did invest some actual money to back up the mirage.
Will anyone, after the passage of five years, point to this press release and complain that Ford deceived them? No, that's part of the plan. It's a bit sad that Slashdot is part of the ignorant mass that falls for this scam.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Does this mean I can rent out my car as a driverless Uber?
I can sit on my ass at home, and let my car do all the work.
"General Motors announced in 2005 that it expects it could have a self-driving car that could pilot itself in heavy traffic at a speed of up to 60 mph in production by 2008." From: http://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web...
People will likely use it a lot less than they use their own cars now. Instead of taking a car for that 1 km ride to the supermarket, they'd walk or take a bike. Many short trips would simply not be done by car, but by other means.
Owning my own car isn't all that convenient. I have to have it serviced. I have to refuel it. It's not always the ideal model for the task at hand. Every so often I have the hellish experience of buying another one. I have to juggle usage with other family members (or spend significantly more money for another vehicle that'll be less used).
Autonomous taxis would be more convenient than taxis driven by real people simply because you could afford to have a lot more of them on the road.
Even in rush hour, it would be common for an autonomous car to complete multiple trips so there's still a significant increase in utilization there. Also, sane road rules would give one-person micro-cars preferential treatment over space-wasting big cars.
I was thinking that Ford can't make the user interface of their car radios work (neither can GM) reliably. Mustangs are the only cars I've ever had to actually reboot. Shouldn't congress act quickly on behalf of the American people to stop this from happening?
... won't. The developers will at some point decide they need a better CPU or graphics and that will be end of life for my car.
The biggest problem with car companies making self driving vehicles is that they are car companies. I was just talking yesterday with some people about my BMW i3 which is an excellent example of the fall of a great company. While the things like the interior, motors and chassis are amazing in the vehicle. There are just SOOOOO many bugs in the design that they should hire Toyota (who has done electronics and software for decades) to fix it. Let's not even get into stuff like doors which don't properly close (checked the floor models too, design problem) or trunk covers which seem designed for a totally different car. And don't get me started on the touch sensor for the door lock. I drove a 2004 Prius for 11 years and the doors locked and unlocked instantly every time. The i3 requires touching, holding, rubbing... I swear, just to lock and unlock my car, I'm putting my marriage in jeopardy.
See, car companies have been more or less forced into modernizing with computers and technology. The problem is, they have absolutely no f-ing clue what they're doing. They could try and buy the tech but it wouldn't be integrated and would likely cost too much. They could develop the tech, but they have no idea how to build and maintain something that complex. You see it when the apps on the computers in the cars are the same ones a year later than they were when the car was first designed. You also see it when the API/SDKs for the computers are closed and require licensing. You see it when the computer needs to be reboot while driving down the road and it can't been done without stopping the car and powering it off. You see it when the iPhone app for the car needs 1-2 minutes to lock or unlock the doors.
I think that the real future for car companies is not to actually make their own cars anymore. I think that car companies will become manufacturing facilities for new companies with the skills required to design the next generation of transportation. I would much rather a Google, Apple or Microsoft vehicle drives me somewhere than a Ford or BMW. It's not that I believe that those three companies make good code. It's that I believe those three companies know how to maintain technology.
Oh... and so far as I know, the computer in my brand new, fully loaded BMW i3 is not able to be upgraded and likely will never be. So, while the vehicle chassis will likely never need changes, the computer which should improve and change with the times
You're not an American, are you? ;)
I know, I know, that'd be 0.621371 miles for you :-)
Al I see is Lost Jobs! as if there are enough jobs now? let's take away taxi drivers, truckers, delivery trucks.
what are we going to do? subsidize them?! Get rid of things that need electricity or Lose your independence & be bound to them!
If it needs to be plugged in or fed batteries I am NOT BUYING.
P.G.&E smart meters took away so many good jobs = guys I know who did that work Loved it! being outside, not in a confine.
Start refusing to let automation take over! refuse to tell the "robot" on the phone MAKE THEM Hire a Real Person!
Over half a mile?!? No way am I walking or biking that far! :)