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Tesla's Sales Increase - But Next Will We Need Smart Roads? (backchannel.com)
Elon Musk says Tesla's autopilot has now driven over 222 million miles, and the company is now selling twice as many electric cars as it did in 2015. (Despite complaints from a coal-mining CEO that Tesla "is a fraud" because it receives tax-payer subsidies.)
But Slashdot reader mirandakatz writes, "It's not enough to build self-driving cars: we have to build the roads to accompany them. Roadside sensors might have once seemed a pipe dream, but with the advent of 5G internet infrastructure, they're not out of reach at all. And their implications span far beyond road safety, GMU researcher Brent Skorup explains at Backchannel: Cities could use sensor data for conducting traffic studies, pushing out real-time public bus alerts, increasing parking space occupancy, metering commercial loading times to prevent congestion, and enhancing pedestrian safety. There are also commercial applications for sensor data: How many cars drive by a billboard? How many people walk by a storefront per day? How many of those people have dogs? These are all questions we could easily answer with roadside sensors.
But Slashdot reader mirandakatz writes, "It's not enough to build self-driving cars: we have to build the roads to accompany them. Roadside sensors might have once seemed a pipe dream, but with the advent of 5G internet infrastructure, they're not out of reach at all. And their implications span far beyond road safety, GMU researcher Brent Skorup explains at Backchannel: Cities could use sensor data for conducting traffic studies, pushing out real-time public bus alerts, increasing parking space occupancy, metering commercial loading times to prevent congestion, and enhancing pedestrian safety. There are also commercial applications for sensor data: How many cars drive by a billboard? How many people walk by a storefront per day? How many of those people have dogs? These are all questions we could easily answer with roadside sensors.
How are we going to afford smart roads when we can't even consistently fix the potholes we've already got?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Smart roads are neither necessary nor sufficient to realize driverless cars. They are unnecessary, because imaging technology is increasing at a nice clip, obviating their need. All of the applications addressed in the article could be realized with smart cars communicating with each other, rather than smart roadside sensors communicating from the street.
Further, road sensors won't be sufficient, because even assuming the cost of these smart sensors becomes relatively inexpensive, there are simply too many less traveled roads to install them on. There are many millions of miles of unpaved dirt roads, newly constructed roads, and roads that are damaged by nature. Cars will need to drive effectively without roadside sensors.
The one application I can see of roadside sensors is possibly to increase accuracy on major highways, thus increasing the max speed of the driverless cars on the road.
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