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Driverless Cars Need a Lot More Than Software, Ford CTO Says (axios.com)
In an interview, Ken Washington, Ford's Chief Technical Officer, shared company's views on how autonomy will change car design. From an article: The biggest influence will be how the cars are bought, sold and used: "You would design those vehicles differently depending on what business model (is being used). We're working through that business model question right now," he said. The biggest misconceptions about autonomous capabilities is that it's only about software: "People are imagining that the act of doing software for autonomy is all you need to do and then you can just bolt it to the car," he said. "I don't think it's possible to describe what an autonomous vehicle is going to look like," he added.
We are sick and tired of selling value at this price point. We don't easily know where you go in real time, can't divert you to areas we want you to go, or subject you to in vehicle ads, and after only a few years you are off a payment plan. We are going to fix this for you, and likely make it illegal to return to the old model of ownership and privacy rights.
The business model should include protecting people and pedestrians at all cost. A car that protects itself while getting everyone killed probably won't have a great used car value.
This rush to deploy driverless vehicles is insanity. Especially after the news of the gentleman who was denogginized by an 18 wheeler through no fault of his own. In response to events like that, Musk and other true believers simply think the concept might need a few more tweaks.
That lot more than software is hardware.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
If you take a model S, and add cross traffic and rear radars, it will have the hardware to be 100% self driving. (Don't believe Tesla when they take your money for "full self driving" without those basic necessities, they're flat out lying as they have done so often in the past)
Beyond that though, there's a LOT of software work to be done, and I really don't know how far away that is. There are just so many edge cases in driving that I'm not confident that we'll get to 100% self driving with zero driver input under any circumstances for a very long time (and that's what you need if you want to get out of the car at work and send the car to pick your kid up at school without you)
Ford though is talking about the next stage, once self driving is around, you won't want what the Model S offers. sitting facing forward with a steering wheel in your lap and with the primary entertainment display off to the side and out of your line of sight will be awkward and unnecessary. Thing is, that's talking about what a self driving car CAN be, not what a self driving car MUST be, these are 2 very different things, and I don't think Ford understands that. Too many people think that you must have complete revolution, instead of simple evolution. The first fully self driving cars will be just like today's cars, but with radar, lidar, and cameras mounted on them, plus some pretty powerful computers and software. They'll evolve from there to include more vehicle to vehicle communication, and to change the interior away from a driving focus, and towards an entertainment focus, but none of that will happen instantly, nor does it need to.
The people who expect a full self driving revolution don't tend to be happy with the slow evolution that actually could get us there, and therefore these people are holding back progress.
Many vehicles today already have a large percentage of the hardware, it's needed for other more basic systems like automatic emergency braking, forward collision warning, automatic lane keeping, adaptive cruise control, parking sensors, blind spot monitoring, etc. These cars will likely still need a bit more in the sensor department, but not all that much. They'll likely need some more powerful computers processing those signals though, and then of course a lot of software.
What Ford is talking about though is about the rest of the car. If your car drives itself, why do you need to sit with a steering wheel in your lap looking through a big pane of glass? wouldn't you rather relax on a couch watching a movie? Of course what Ford fails to realize is that this evolution will come, but it can come after the self driving part. The re-imagining of the interior (and maybe even exterior) need self driving before they can happen, but self driving does not need those changes to happen before it comes to be. Most major changes in technology are not overnight revolutions, they're evolution that takes time. Self driving will be no different.
We don't know that a vehicle has hardware for self driving until we have a vehicle that is actually self driving. At this point it is a guess.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
That's not actually the whole story. Ford had written a cost-benefit analysis of changing fuel systems across all cars, not just Pintos, as part of a presentation to NHTSA about moving to a 30mph fixed-barrier standard. The standards were rapidly shifting during the development of the Pinto - there was no rear-collision standard at all when the design began and the original proposal was a 20 mph moving-barrier standard, which Ford supported and designed the Pinto around.
The NHTSA then solicited opinions on a future change to a 30mph fixed-barrier standard, which was the reason Ford provided that analysis. The Pinto was one of dozens of vehicles which would be affected by such a change. Mother Jones magazine got the report and turned it into a series of stories about the Pinto being a death trap. The NHTSA then tested the Pinto using non-standard methods (different levels of gasoline, the use of a "bullet" car instead of a barrier that was designed to ram under the gas tank, and a 35mph speed that had never been discussed). Based on a set of tests that were designed specifically to cause a gas leak and exceeded any standards even being discussed, the car was recalled.
Pretty much any station wagon or hatchback of the era would have failed that test. I'm glad that we now have even more stringent tests but it's clear that this was a rigged test and a media generated controversy rather than specifically nefarious company wrongdoing. Every applicable standard of the time was met - it just couldn't pass a test specifically designed to make it fail.
Thank you for a solid exposition and reply.
I think you have some confused idea of what a "sensor" is, and what the software needs to do.
Can your cell phone camera take a picture of a white truck on a cloudy day? Sure it can. Can the software of a potential self-driving system identify the white truck? That's the problem.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Because I want to own my own car. I want control over the vehicle internal hardware and software, I don't want someone else's dirty vehicle, I want to add the accessories I choose and have easy access to them, I want to take it off road or on long trips where it will wait for me, I want it at my beck and call 24/7, I don't want monthly payments just off the top of my head. In an emergency or other high demand time I want a 100% shot at immediate vehicle access. You feel free living without a vehicle and only a glorified uber, paying far more cost per mile than vehicle ownership for the same number of miles, you and others may prefer this. Corporations like ford definitely want this yesterday. I, and likely many others, never will.
So in the UK that's basically just centralish London. Can't speak for other countries but because it might work in London means jack for the remaining 90% of the population.