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The Audi A8: First Production Car To Achieve Level 3 Autonomy (ieee.org)
schwit1 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: The 2018 Audi A8, just unveiled in Barcelona, counts as the world's first production car to offer Level 3 autonomy. Level 3 means the driver needn't supervise things at all, so long as the car stays within guidelines. Here that involves driving no faster than 60 kilometers per hour (37 mph), which is why Audi calls the feature AI Traffic Jam Pilot. Go ahead, Audi's saying, read your newspaper or just zone out while traffic creeps along. To be sure, the A8 also monitors the driver, even while the traffic jam persists, and continues to do so as the speed edges up over the limit. If the driver falls asleep, it'll wake him up; if it can't get his attention, it will stop the car. If you want to buy the new A8, you'll have to check whether your jurisdiction will accept it as a Level 3 car. Audi said in a statement that it will follow "a step-by-step approach" to introducing the traffic jam pilot. It plans to sell the base model in Europe this fall for 90,600 euros, or about $103,000, and to enter the United States market shortly afterwards. A model having a longer wheelbase will cost a few percent more.
Go ahead, Audi's saying, read your newspaper or just zone out while traffic creeps along. (...) If you want to buy the new A8, you'll have to check whether your jurisdiction will accept it as a Level 3 car.
Does any jurisdiction accept any car as level 3? Because if the law will put you in the slammer for manslaughter and the insurance company refuse to cover your gross recklessness it's not exactly a feature.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Because you HAVE to have a manual transmission if you're a real driver.
Up until the most modern DSG's this was a very true statement, automatics meant significant performance sacrifices where a real driver would considerably outperform the auto.
True for cars, but not for pickup trucks (big trucks with huge numbers of gears are a different story). There are significant advantages to having a torque converter over a clutch when starting a heavy load. As a result, pickups with automatic transmissions have higher rated towing capacities than the same model with a manual transmission. There are also a lot of advantages for off-road vehicles, where drivers may need to apply very precise amounts of power from a standing start and at low speeds.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
... the Germans will *still* order it with a manual transmission.
The Audi A8 has never been offered with a manual transmission, except under the S8 name, and even then only in the first generation and only in limited european markets (yes, Germany) and in very minimal quantity. Every other A8 has come with a slush box, either the ZF5HP19 if they are FWD, or the ZF5HP24A if they are AWD. Those few manual S8s came with the 6-speed 01E gearbox. You can also fit the 5-speed 01A.
All new A8s which are not fully electric will be 48V mild hybrids, and feature slush boxes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually the combat on the western front only started in summer 1944 - this is when the USSR arrived at the border with Poland and the allied were seriously concerned that the Soviets might win the war in Europe all by themselves. The vast majority of the Wehrmacht was destroyed on the eastern front.
Oh, and the last fascist regime, Spain, was happily supported by Americans. And yes, you are lying. USSR was not doing its damndest to expand westwards. Stalin promised not to support Greek communists and he didn't. The Soviet army left Austria in 1955 right after Austria signed the neutrality pact. USSR wanted a buffer zone between their mainland and the West that invaded Russia several times and this is what the Warsaw Pact was all about. So you calling people little shits for telling lies is like the pot calling the kettle a nigga.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
In Finland, driverless cars are completely legal.
A startup recently asked the ministry of transport whether it could conduct trials of selfdriving busses on public roads. After a month of delay, the ministry replied something along the line of "We have thoroughly studied the law text, and find no passage which would require the presence of a driver. All you need to provide is a statement of which person is responsible for the car's behaviour on the road."