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Audi Cars Now Talk To Stop Lights In Vegas (ieee.org)
Audi says its cars can now tell drivers how many seconds remain until the traffic light turns green. It's the first commercial offering of vehicle-to-infrastructure communication in the United States, it adds. From a report, submitted by an anonymous reader: Of course, nobody would pay much extra for an electronic gadget that just lowered your stoplight waiting anxiety. But this feature is just testing the waters; bigger applications are in view. The cars -- recently manufactured Audi A4 and Q7 models signed onto Audi's prime connection service -- communicate with the Las Vegas traffic management system via 4G LTE, the standard mobile phones use. The countdown appears on the dashboard or heads-up display, then shuts off a few seconds before the light changes (presumably to keep drivers from getting mesmerized). Audi manages the transfer of data with the help of its partner, Traffic Technology Services (TTS), of Beaverton, Ore. The plan is to eventually give drivers the information they need to make fairly ambitious predictions, like choosing the right speed to go sailiing through several green lights in a row. Or the system might bypass the driver and go straight to the engine's "start-stop" system, shutting it down for a long count, then starting it up again seconds before getting a green light.
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* If there is no car in front of me I still have to wait for the light to turn green (and then some in the US to avoid red light runners) /can't act like plug flow in a pipe unless you build in major automated convoy support)
* If there is a car ahead of me I still have to wait for them to move before I can move.
* If I have a car that shuts the engine down when stopped (and I have driven such cars), the engine already instantly comes on when my foot lifts from the brake pedal (and if it doesn't it won't happen with the App either)
* If you are driving in traffic you still can't beat the dynamics of all those other people (and traffic doesn't
* If it is just you on a main road then it tries to keep the traffic flowing by defaulting to green lights in your direction (and it's those pesky side road drivers who screw up your green lights)
* If it is just you on a side road then the lights will be defaulted against you anyway.
So what are they really trying to solve? They already have a bunch of sensors/cameras that can be used to sample traffic and tell you what the current traffic patterns are.
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If you put counters on ALL lights, green, red, yellow, crosswalks, and have properly timed lights, it's like clockwork.
Saw this in Chong Qing when I was there years back.
Hell, if you do that and clearly mark the stop lines, you can even throw in red-light cameras and HUGE fines as long as there's no tricks (hidden stop lines, improperly timed lights).
How do you turn this car-to-anything-external comunication the fuck OFF?!?!?
Geez, I mean, I don't want this crap on my car, to aid in tracking etc.
Hell, its difficult enough to disable OnStar or any other myriad of car to base communications as it is....this sounds like even more potentially intrusive software/hardware reporting to authorities on the road.
Hell...I guess I am going to just stick to in the future...70's muscle cars, and other older 'fun' cars to ride in, without all this crap.
Hell, I'd pay EXTRA on a new car to get it without all this external to car communication.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........