Automated Cars Are Not Able To Use the Automated Car Wash (thetruthaboutcars.com)

schwit1 shares a report from The Truth About Cars: [T]he simple task of washing a self-driving car is far more complicated than one might expect, as anything other than meticulous hand washing a big no-no. Automated car washes could potentially dislodge expensive sensors, scratch them up, or leave behind soap residue or water spots that would affect a camera's ability to see. According to CNN, automakers and tech firms have come up with a myriad of solutions to this problem -- though a man with a rag and some water appears to be the most popular. Toyota, Aptiv, Drive.AI, May Mobility, and Uber have all said they use rubbing alcohol, water, or glass cleaner to manually wash the sensors, before carefully finishing the job with a microfiber cloth. While it's more than just a little ironic that these automated vehicles require gobs of attention and pampering from human hands just to function correctly, some companies are working on a way around it. General Motors' Cruise has said it will design and implement sensor-cleaning equipment in production vehicles.

Comments

Acetone

[Bing Tsher E]

Does this mean a quick acetone wipe will assure that fine driving machine is driven by somebody paying attention?

Re:Acetone

[msauve]

It assures that these cars will never work in the salt-spray environment encountered on northern winter roads. Interesting that most testing seems to be done in CA or AZ. Wimps.

Re:Acetone

[nitehawk214]

There are at least 2 companies testing them in Pittsburgh. I think they run them through the wash every time they use them. The Argo and Uber cars are the only clean ones on the road at the time of year. Completely useless for real-world use.

just add to the to do list

[cosmicl]

Seems the self driving car developers have been focusing on the hard problem of how to make a car self driving and safe. Packaging the sensors to handle a car wash is one of the less-hard problems. Probably need some sort of diagnostic to make sure it is clean and functional before going back on the road. Also sensors that can tolerate driving in dust, rain, and slush. If these items are not on the developer to do list, then add them. They will get solved because they are not super hard and they have to be solved to make money.

Re:just add to the to do list

[mrclevesque]

But how they're going to know sensor cleaners are doing their job right, sensor diagnostics haven't failed, or what to do if dust, rain, or slush levels exceed safe driving conditions.

Re: just add to the to do list

[dgatwood]

That's easily solved. Most people never run out of fuel, because there's a gauge to tell them that they need to fill it up. If cars had an idiot light that says "Refill wiper fluid now" that goes on when it is at the 25% mark, nobody would run out of wiper fluid, either. Car companies don't add that sensor that because wiper fluid isn't a critical safety feature. If it becomes one, they presumably will do so.

Re: just add to the to do list

[fluffernutter]

Cars have a hard enough time in the cold. I don't need a car with a complicated plumbing of antifreeze running though it. I don't need another thing to fill because it can make my car not work. I'm already going to have range anxiety because it will probably be an electric car with an overworked battery because it has to power heaters to melt the half inch of ice from the night before.

Re: just add to the to do list

[pete6677]

Cars have had "complicated plumbing of antifreeze" for decades now. All you have to do to activate it is pull forward on that same little stick that operates the wipers.

Re: just add to the to do list

[David_Hart]

That's easily solved. Most people never run out of fuel, because there's a gauge to tell them that they need to fill it up. If cars had an idiot light that says "Refill wiper fluid now" that goes on when it is at the 25% mark, nobody would run out of wiper fluid, either. Car companies don't add that sensor that because wiper fluid isn't a critical safety feature. If it becomes one, they presumably will do so.

They can develop warnings all they want, but unless the sensors can operate when they are dirty, they aren't going to be much use in the winter in New England or Eastern Canada. We salt and sand the roads here and the car gets covered with wet muddy water 5 minutes after you get on any major highway. The muddy wet conditions last for about a week after every snow fall.

Driving after the first snow fall is bad enough as, for some strange reason, people forget how to drive in the snow over the summer. And these are people who routinely drive their cars. I can just imagine what it would be like being on the road with people who are used to their self-driving cars and who have to drive manually because their sensors are obscured...

Re: just add to the to do list

[tlhIngan]

Most people never run out of fuel, because there's a gauge to tell them that they need to fill it up.

You'd be surprised, but running out of fuel is one of the most common ways a car basically "stops".

It's not because they forget to fill up, it's that they did fill up, but attempt to stretch it. All it takes is a sudden traffic jam, a road closure, diversion, or something else that idles them by the driveway and boom, they're out of gas.

Especially when gas prices rise and people toss $20 of gas in the tank when it hits E. They have barely enough gas to do all their stuff and reach another gas station.

Personally, once the gauge hits half I refill the tank - mostly because of a used car I had where if the tank was below half, it would basically be useless and jump all over the place. But above half, it was fine. Since I never "stretch it", once it hits half, it's time to fill up. In the winter months, I raise it to 3/4 - ensuring I have gas in the tank for emergencies, or in case things go sideways.

But that takes someone who is disciplined enough to visit the gas station often. Most people prefer to stretch it the other way and fill up when it hits E.

Re:just add to the to do list

[bdwoolman]

Agreed. Trivial problem. The sensor package in my current vehicle works from the inside. Well away from road mess. That would be yours truly.

A washable casing that is transparent to the sensor's stimuli should do the trick. Currently, I am protected by the car's windows. An analogous solution for a sensor/control package should be easy. Adds to the cost, of course. If needed, delicate sensors could retract and be subjected to cleaning internally.. Autonomous vehicles should garage themselves when practical.

All this might be beside the point. My guess is that these type of cars will rarely be parked on the street. We won't own them. We will summon them from some central location where routine maintenance such as cleaning will take place. It is also pretty clear that during really lousy weather, when travel advisories are in effect, they just won't operate. And you will be stuck wherever you are. Unless you know how to drive and have a legacy vehicle license. Which fewer and fewer people will know how to do. Those that do will charge an arm and a leg to pick you up from the bar on a snowy night. Oh, wait! They already do.

What percentage of millennials can efficiently navigate a city using a paper map and their memory I wonder? Unless, that is, they have been trained to do so by the military? Even those of us who came up knowing how to do that have probably lost the knack somewhat.

Re:just add to the to do list

[ganv]

Exactly right cosmicl. Slashdot needs to filter out these throw away stories that make up some kind of imaginary problem for some emerging technology. Of course they get lots of comments...because people here often believe in the future of these technologies and like to propose solutions to whatever problems might be standing in the way. But using automated car washes is easily solved, both by modifying the car and modifying the car wash. And people are shallow enough that the take away message is often that there is some deep problem that will keep the technology from being developed.

Re: just add to the to do list

[gnick]

But that takes someone who is disciplined enough to visit the gas station often.

I fill up at Smith's and gas is discounted per gallon according to how much I've spent at their grocery store since my last fill-up. The longer I "stretch it", the less I pay per gallon. When I was married, we'd fill both vehicles with one pump and ideally they'd both be as close to empty as possible. It's not JUST a matter of discipline.

Re: just add to the to do list

[dgatwood]

They can develop warnings all they want, but unless the sensors can operate when they are dirty, they aren't going to be much use in the winter in New England or Eastern Canada.

Obviously, the sensors have to operate when not entirely clean, but there are limits, and there's no way to avoid requiring that they be at least somewhat clean.

Re: just add to the to do list

[dgatwood]

It's not because they forget to fill up, it's that they did fill up, but attempt to stretch it. All it takes is a sudden traffic jam, a road closure, diversion, or something else that idles them by the driveway and boom, they're out of gas.

And the first time somebody gets stuck on the side of the road for lack of wiper fluid, they'll learn to buy a $5 bottle and keep it at home. We're not talking about something you have to fill up twice a week here....

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[AmiMoJo]

For full self-driving you need some mechanism to clear the sensors if they get obscured. That usually means wipers for rain/snow and heaters for frost/snow.

Waymo seems to have developed something for their sensor package to operate in snow. Tesla only has heaters.

So WTF happens in the rain?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it can't handle a car wash at low velocity that lasts a few minutes, how's it going to handle hours and hours of rain with entrained road grime at highway speeds?

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[Brett Buck]

You are not supposed to ask that question. You risk excommunication.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[fluffernutter]

Mod up.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[SirSlud]

Car washes put more physical stress on the sensors than rain and road grime. I mean, surely you can't read this and think, "Oh, so these cars' sensors fall off in the rain." The issue is the indiscriminate srubbing of automated car washes.

And like some others have pointed out, it's an easy issue. Don't take your car to a car wash. They're the very definition of a first world market.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[Dutch Gun]

Funny, I thought the solution would be to engineer the sensors so they're not so damned fragile that I can't take them through the car wash. I also refuse to buy dishes or cookware that I can't throw in the dishwasher.

I like time-saving first-world amenities.

Re: So WTF happens in the rain?

[Type44Q]

There are a lot of situations these things won't be able to handle. No one tell the marketing drones and the MBA's; they don't deserve to know.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[Carewolf]

If it can't handle a car wash at low velocity that lasts a few minutes, how's it going to handle hours and hours of rain with entrained road grime at highway speeds?

They can't drive in less than perfect conditions at the moment.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[The123king]

Disposable plates and cutlery will save on loading the dishwasher

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[drinkypoo]

The truth is that you shouldn't take any car through the car wash. It's not good for any of them. None of them are designed to take that kind of abuse and it scratches the paint because those fabric brushes trap grit. Only plebes use automated car washes.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[mjwx]

Car washes put more physical stress on the sensors than rain and road grime. I mean, surely you can't read this and think, "Oh, so these cars' sensors fall off in the rain." The issue is the indiscriminate srubbing of automated car washes.

And like some others have pointed out, it's an easy issue. Don't take your car to a car wash. They're the very definition of a first world market.

This is just another example of these cars not being ready for prime time. If the sensors are that fragile, they risk becoming dislodged in relatively calm Berkshire. Weather in the UK can already damage parking sensors but cars can do without those.

I've said it for a while, autonomous cars look good because they've only ever been tested in sunny California... they need to be able to work on the back roads of Cornwall and suburban streets of London before they're ready for prime time and people already complain about the narrow lanes of Cornwall setting off AEB systems because they cant tell the difference between a car and an overhanging leaf.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[apoc.famine]

I've said it for a while, autonomous cars look good because they've only ever been tested in sunny California... they need to be able to work on the back roads of Cornwall and suburban streets of London....

I think you're closer, but still not there yet. Cornwall is ok, but how about somewhere like Cornwall with hills or mountains? Steep curves and varying road-widths? Sure London is a challenge, but how about Chicago or Boston in the winter, with banks of snow, obscured lines, and narrower streets than normal?

As you note, there are a lot of people who live in not-so-perfect driving conditions. A lot of people where I live struggle to drive when 1/4" of snow obscures the lines on the road, and that's a relatively common occurrence. I don't know how well automated driving will do in that situation, but until it's at least as good as the bottom 30% of drivers, it's not going to be ready for prime-time. Once it's that good, it at least won't be worst than a lot of drivers on the road, and that's a step forward.

I think what we're missing is differentiating between "not so good at driving" and "potentially disastrous". As you note, AEB triggering because of a leaf falls into the "potentially disastrous" category. Until we're pretty convinced that automated driving isn't going to potentially cause a disaster, people are not going to be willing to rely on it too much. Once we're pretty sure that it won't, even if it's not so good at driving, it's closer to "let your teenager drive because you're feeling lazy", and that's something that's pretty common.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[gnick]

It will replace a few of the lost jobs.

The coal miners are going to be pissed when they find out that they're on rag-and-bucket duty, but it beats an empty dinner table.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[edtice1559]

There are many people who won't take their cars through an automated car wash because of a (real or perceived) fear of damage and prefer a hand wash. There are hand wash places all over large cities. You go down a conveyor just like an automated car wash but there are a line of people to do the washing. In high volume locations, the price isn't much higher. You don't see this in more suburban places where customers are intermittent.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[Dutch Gun]

Only plebes use automated car washes.

It really depends on whether you're the type who masturbates to your car's silky smooth finish, or treats it like a machine to get from point a to b.

My 13 year old car has gone through automated car washes its entire life, and still looks nice and shiny. Sorry, I've got far more interesting things to do with my time than hand-washing my transportation to avoid putting a few abrasions in its clear-coat finish.

Re:So WTF happens in the rain?

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, I've got far more interesting things to do with my time than hand-washing my transportation to avoid putting a few abrasions in its clear-coat finish.

You're better off using the coin-op spray wash and skipping the brush... although brushes do less scratching than those stupid cloth mops.

I mostly skip washing my car, but when I do wash it, I either just pressure wash it, or I use the three-bucket method. Anything else is just doing damage. But then, my car's unibody is made of Aluminum, and corrosion is a non-issue for me since I'm being careful to avoid galvanic corrosion.

Winter

[bidule]

they use rubbing alcohol, water, or glass cleaner to manually wash the sensors, before carefully finishing the job with a microfiber cloth.

Those people have never met snow or the salty sludge thrown around by passing cars.

Re:Winter

[devnullkac]

Reminds me of an exchange from the movie Deal Of The Century involving a totally automated fighter aircraft: Haven't ya ever heard of RAIN?

Re:Winter

[cascadingstylesheet]

they use rubbing alcohol, water, or glass cleaner to manually wash the sensors, before carefully finishing the job with a microfiber cloth.

Those people have never met snow or the salty sludge thrown around by passing cars.

Silly, only flyover rubes get snow!

Re:Winter

[Brett Buck]

Now you're getting it. These projects (self-driving cars, Tesla, hyperloops, California's Supertrain, er, high-speed rail) are vanity projects by the uber-rich to create nerdgasms among the crowd that treated Jedi like a real religion and have seen Blade Runner 47 times. Oh, they come up with very well-written justifications of them in terms of social responsibility, and ignore the fact that if we took the money wasted on this crap (that largely winds up in the pockets of the already uber-rich), we could easily solve every other real problem we have.

Re: Winter

[Type44Q]

I'm getting the impression that "self driving" is being pushed by morons who've never driven in the first place... which actually makes sense for multiple reasons.

Ding Ding Ding

[DesertNomad]

This vehicle has detected blocking of the LEFT FRONT UPPER optical sensor. This vehicle will now pull off the road in a safe location. Locate the OPTICAL sensor cleaning kit that was supplied to the registered owner of this vehicle and employ it in the method shown on the center console screen. Use of any cleaning product or method different from the specified product may invalidate your warranty. Have a nice day!

Re:Ding Ding Ding

[vtcodger]

That's if the vehicle software is written by a car maker. From Silicon Valley, you'll get the more concise form

"ERROR 506B -- Rebooting"

Re:Ding Ding Ding

[dryeo]

That's assuming there is a safe place to pull over. Around here, when it snows, we're lucky if 2 lanes are plowed and the shoulders always have a few feet of snow piled up on them. I've driven quite a few miles just looking for a spot to pull over and let the idiot tailgating me, who thinks having a 4x4 means being able to stop on a dime and corner like a sports car on shear ice, pass me so I can laugh when I see him in the ditch down the road, usually do as well.

Re:Ding Ding Ding

[david_thornley]

On my route to and from work, there's a five-mile stretch of two-lane divided highway without exits, and the shoulders don't look wide enough.

Re:Ding Ding Ding

[edtice1559]

When I was fresh out of college, I had to handle a return code from a function that I thought could never actually fail and used the error code "I am a fish." That was a painful lesson.

Re:Ding Ding Ding

[dryeo]

Yea, lots of roads like that around here as well.

And you nervous Nellies worry we won't have jobs

[burhop]

See! All these advances in technology just create new jobs in new places! How many "Washer of High Tech Car" jobs were there 20 years ago? None!

Wifi Antenna Cleaner?
Robot repair?
Laser lens deduster?
3D Printer Nozzle Declogger?

I could go on. Relax you all.

Overwrought Concern

[DumbSwede]

Do Teslas have this problem now? I remember when you use to have to put down your exterior antenna before going into a car wash. Yes, many of the current under-development cars have this problem. Once self driving cars really arrive there maybe a short period where you have to cover some special equipment in some cases for some brands -- but quite quickly the cars will evolve to not need this or car washes will evolve to accommodate. To propose this is the thing that will prevent adoption is foolish (or wishful thinking) which I think is part of the suggestion behind this posting.

Re:Overwrought Concern

[Carewolf]

Do Teslas have this problem now? I remember when you use to have to put down your exterior antenna before going into a car wash. Yes, many of the current under-development cars have this problem. Once self driving cars really arrive there maybe a short period where you have to cover some special equipment in some cases for some brands -- but quite quickly the cars will evolve to not need this or car washes will evolve to accommodate. To propose this is the thing that will prevent adoption is foolish (or wishful thinking) which I think is part of the suggestion behind this posting.

No, Tesla do not have this problem because Tesla has no self-driving cars. All they have a cars with a standard off the shelf lane-assist + cruise-control.

Re:Overwrought Concern

[SuperKendall]

Teslas have do indeed have lane assist - to the point it van follow a curving road. They also maintain distance to cars ahead and can come to a complete stop, then move again, when the other cars do...

Teslas are quite a bit beyond having "cruise control". So you would think they would be equally impacted, but they are not I think because (a) they have a lot of cameras, and (b) the cameras seem fairly well protected. Other self driving cars on the road today have much more exposed sensors and cameras, where Teslas are pretty sealed in.

Re:Overwrought Concern

[fluffernutter]

How do you protect a camera against splashing frozen sand sludge??

Re: Overwrought Concern

[Type44Q]

Vaseline.

Re:Overwrought Concern

[Carewolf]

Teslas have do indeed have lane assist - to the point it van follow a curving road. They also maintain distance to cars ahead and can come to a complete stop, then move again, when the other cars do...

Teslas are quite a bit beyond having "cruise control". So you would think they would be equally impacted, but they are not I think because (a) they have a lot of cameras, and (b) the cameras seem fairly well protected. Other self driving cars on the road today have much more exposed sensors and cameras, where Teslas are pretty sealed in.

This is all part of standard advanced cruise control these days. The difference is that the driver is no supposed to take their hands of the wheel and eyes of the road, this means they in theory don't have to worry about the AI working ideal all the time as the driver is supposed to take over at any second. It is also a flawed assumption but that is a completely different issue.

Re:Overwrought Concern

[SuperKendall]

How do you protect a camera against splashing frozen sand sludge??

For one thing I believe some of the cameras are up higher, like in the mirrors.

For another, the cover material can be some kind of oleophobic material (read: slippery) that things have trouble sticking to. For yet another, maybe some of the cameras have cleaners the way headlight washers work (I have no idea if that is the case for Tesla, but it's something you could easily add to keep cameras clean).

Car manufactures have worked up a lot of ways to keep headlights clear, it seems like you can piggyback on on a lot of that for front cameras.

Re:Overwrought Concern

[david_thornley]

I trust the adaptive cruise control on my car because, if it fails, there's plenty of time for me to do something about it. In the meantime, I'm looking around to see what other drivers might be doing, because I don't trust them. Similarly, I had no problems keeping my attention on the road and traffic when teaching my son how to drive, even after he demonstrated that he was competent in situations where another driver did a bonehead thing. (Actually, the driver that did that made me more relaxed in the long run, because I had more faith in my son's driving.)

First world problem

[mschuyler]

First world problem. Guess we'll still need humans for something.

Re:First world problem

[freeze128]

Cars that use human drivers aren't much better. The humans that drive them also need meticulous hand washing.

It's a prototype

[rsilvergun]

what do you expect? Some like washing a fleet is the kind of thing they'll do once the whole "self driving" thing is worked out.

robustness as zero-day freebie

[epine]

While it's more than just a little ironic that these automated vehicles require gobs of attention and pampering from human hands just to function correctly, some companies are working on a way around it.

Yeah, because every time society goes on another automation kick, robustness is a zero-day freebie.

While I understand virtue signalling, I'm still working on this conspicuous signalling of brain damage. Perhaps the intended message is mostly harmless, comparatively speaking, next to alcohol abuse, for whom this ridiculous bell tolls.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[ShanghaiBill]

Who's going to wipe the mud of everything?

Most likely the vehicle owner will hose it off periodically, which is good enough. I have had my minivan for 19 years. This is the number of times I have take it to a carwash: 0.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[fluffernutter]

Clearly you have never had to operate a vehicle in freezing temperatures. There is no hosing off your vehicle. You wipe off the snow as best as you can in five minutes and go.

They just need eyelids!

[RhettLivingston]

While going to work on an interstate in slushy weather, I was driving 65 in the fast lane which was separated from the oncoming lanes by a concrete barrier above headlight level. A truck in the oncoming lane hit a slush puddle and sent a wall of black slush over the barrier. It fully covered my windshield and side window. I couldn't see anything other than the fact that the car behind me got plastered too. So he couldn't see me either. I couldn't put my brakes on. I had to pray the car in front of me didn't stop, turn wipers and wash on, and wait to see again. It was a long few seconds. These things will happen.

A sensor could avoid being blinded in the same situation if it had something like eyelids with similar reflexes and speed.

The sensor processing should have a parallel path that does nothing but detect things coming at the sensor and send a signal to close the lid at just the right moment to block most of the debris. That combined with new technology to make the sensor windows hydrophobic should go a long way to keep them clean.

Redundancy is also important. I personally think they should explore audio sensing to augment the visual. It is cheap and can warn about threats that are out of sight. I prefer driving with my windows down in city environments because the noises give me a good 3D map of the traffic without taking my eyes from the road in front.

Re:They just need eyelids!

[fluffernutter]

The biggest challenge I see in that is to make an 'eyelid' that would still open and close without fail in situations where water has penetrated into the hinges or mechanisms and frozen solid. Even windshield wipers get stuck until rammed repeatedly with the scraping end of a brush.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[olsmeister]

I have to clear the lens of my backup camera of road salt residue once or twice a week at this time of year where I live, otherwise everything looks like a big whitewashed blur.

Of course we'll be careful with them.

[ColaMan]

I deal with Lidars a lot, on self-driving loaders in an underground mining environment. It's pretty much the worst place for them - dusty, wet, hot, lots of vibration, you name it. Even though they are sealed to IP67, with o-rings on sealing surfaces & etc, they get water in them on a regular basis - IP67 is no match for even the mild pressure from a garden hose, let alone a pressure cleaner. The recommendation from the manufacturer is to send them back to the factory when they get wet, we generally take them apart and dry them out because a visit to the factory costs upwards of $5,000 (and six weeks delay) for an $10,000 device.

They mostly need to be cleaned about once a shift if the conditions are average. They need to be cleaned hourly if conditions are terrible. Failure to clean them gives us missing portions of scans if a mud splatter hits the lens, or a general loss of distance if it's just grime. Both of those things upset the self-driving software eventually, and then it's tedious manual control until someone can go clean it.

A dirty lens used to give us a "pollution error", but we changed the settings in the firmware of the lidars to turn that function off because we were sick of regular halts for errors that had yet to make an impact on the machine's operation. That is, what the manufacturer thinks is a critical pollution fault is actually about halfway to being unusable.

Lenses on our machines typically last about a couple of thousand hours of operation - probably a year or so if you translate that to a passenger vehicle. And of course, when cleaning them the instructions say to use a mild detergent and a clean, lint free cloth, gently buffing to a sparkling result. In reality, that is usually windex (or contact cleaner if there's grease on the lens) and any sort of material that can be found to wipe it with - paper towel, the sleeve of your shirt, a thumb, etc. Needless to say, this generally transforms the finely polished plastic lenses into a hazy scratched mess fairly quickly, especially if people spray and then wipe the lens without actually rinsing the crud off. So expect this to happen to consumer gear as well. And you can't just directly hose them, because hey, they aren't that waterproof either.

As long as there's plastic lenses in use, there's not really much manufacturers can do about this, other than have a secondary, cheap, external covering that can be unclipped and swapped out quickly. Or something like peel-off stickers like motorbike riders have for their helmets. They could shift to proper glass lenses, but even though they'd be much more durable, they would also be much more expensive to make.

(And what's going on with your backend, Slashdot? Heaps of timeouts and errors today.)

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[dgatwood]

As long as there's plastic lenses in use, there's not really much manufacturers can do about this, other than have a secondary, cheap, external covering that can be unclipped and swapped out quickly.

Why the heck would someone put a plastic lens on a sensor intended for use in a high-dirt environment? Even glass isn't hard enough. They should be using sapphire crystal, at an absolute minimum. That's a pretty big design mistake.

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[rkordmaa]

Sapphire is right out and getting optical glass in such a shape is a costly pain in the rear, I am not at all surprised they just make it out of plastic. It's not a design mistake, it's a sensible engineering compromise. http://home.roboticlab.eu/_med...
I am thinking lidar is probably not the future in autonomous cars, because of cost and complexity. Human can drive a car using just two eyes, therefore clever enough vision software should be able to manage things with just cameras.

Re: Of course we'll be careful with them.

[Type44Q]

should

Should in one hand; shit in the other.

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[ColaMan]

Well the main reasons are cost, cost, cost, cost and practicality.

Try making a 270 degree sapphire crystal hemispherical lens to suit this ladar, for example.

Or, you make a plastic lens that costs $50 to replace, and replace them on a regular basis.....

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[ColaMan]

Radar is coming along nicely. There's some good 77GHz phase array radars coming out from Delphi and Bosch that do decent object detection and tracking. Flat transmitter panel, can see through plastics (so can be mounted behind bumpers), generally dirt resistant.

Add computer vision on top and you'd probably have something that can do a reasonable job.

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[GrumpySteen]

IP67 is no match for even the mild pressure from a garden hose, let alone a pressure cleaner.

That's because IP67 is rated for immersion, not water jets. If you need to use a pressure cleaner, you should be buying sensors rated IP66 or IP69K. IPx7 (immersion) does not imply that it meets IPx6 (high pressure water jet) protection.

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[dgatwood]

It shouldn't be that much more expensive to use glass. Even if you have some crazy lens design that can't easily be ground and must be moulded instead, you can always bond a thin layer of glass or sapphire to the exposed face. No, it isn't an engineering decision, or if it is, it's a terribly bad one.

More likely, it's a marketing decision. Why spend an extra buck to bond a thin layer of sapphire to the product when you can instead sell $5 replacement lenses for $50 each?

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[ColaMan]

It shouldn't be that much more expensive to use glass.

Did you even look at the link I provided?

It is a 270 degree lens and a 360 degree cap assembly, with the actual lens surface angled inwards about 20 degrees off vertical.
It has a "shelf" at the bottom of the lens where the pollution sensors shine through.
It has a plastic cap at the top, so you'll have to cap your sapphire lens assembly somehow, so you need to bond something to the glass.
It is structurally robust - I can drop the 2kg assembly it on its head from a foot or two without damage.

It is very much an engineering decision, because you can injection-mould optically clear plastic very, very simply and very, very cheaply and in a normal environment I'd expect it to last ages.

Re:Of course we'll be careful with them.

[dgatwood]

It is very much an engineering decision, because you can injection-mould optically clear plastic very, very simply and very, very cheaply and in a normal environment I'd expect it to last ages.

You can also injection mould glass fairly cheaply, AFAIK. The metal mould doesn't really care if you're injecting plastic resin or molten glass, so long as the melting temperature of the glass is significantly lower than the melting temperature of the mould itself. There are companies making aspheric lenses with moulding all the time.

Either way, the point I was trying to make was not that all LIDAR lenses should be made of glass, but rather that if you're constantly having problems with lenses getting scratched, in the long run, it probably would makes sense to try to convince the manufacturer to sell a high-end version with a moulded glass lens, even if the resulting lens costs more and is heavier—unless, of course, you're constantly having things actually hitting the lens itself, in which case you have bigger problems than scratches. :-)

Sensory Overload

[mtippett]

Before reading the article, I had originally had images of a the car AI freaking out the same way that a smal child does when the machinery starts moving past the car giving that slightly uneasy fealing that the car is actually moving. That paired with the sudden movement and noise freaks any 3 year old out. How would a car handle it.

Unfortunately, the article was about sensor care, which disappoints me greatly. I would have assumed that autonomous vehicles would just disappear from the driveway for a few hours for the car equivalent of mani and pedi. I'm assuming that a standin car could also come drop by to keep the driveway warm.

Re:Sensory Overload

[fluffernutter]

So if the car is frozen to your driveway, how would that work?

Re: Kinda makes you wonder

[fluffernutter]

It sounds to me like all that crap would get broken very easily (and very costly) when frozen solid and has an equally frozen plastic brush ramming against it. It's not like it is ever daylight out as we try to clean off our vehicles and head off to work in the morning, desperately clutching onto our steaming travel mug with the other mitted hand.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[fluffernutter]

They're trying to get us to NOT warm up our vehicles before starting out in the morning for the sake of the environment. How much energy and time is it going to take to melt off six inches of snow? Even half an inch of ice.

Re:How do they think they will deal with SNOW?

[fluffernutter]

Yet somehow people use them in Norway. They must have heating coils installed in all the roads.

dealer will become the only approved way to wash

[Joe_Dragon]

dealer will become the only approved way to wash your car and that will be $100 a pop forced each X days

Oh well

[PPH]

I suppose it will just have to be a hand wash [NSFW] then. The sacrifices we have to make for our technology. [Sigh]

Re:How do they think they will deal with SNOW?

[SirSlud]

Unlike most of the U.S., we actually have heavy traffic here.

I'm from/live in Toronto, and all I can say is you're an idiot who apparently has never visited anywhere else on this planet.

Re:dealer will become the only approved way to was

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Nonsense. You won't own a self-driving car. And then it will be illegal for you to drive a car one the road yourself. Your choice will be whether Google, Uber, or some third party tracks your every motion in their automated taxi service.

Re:How do they think they will deal with SNOW?

[dryeo]

Do they really use driverless cars in Norway? Or do they switch over to manual driving or perhaps use transit?

mud and vandalism

[petes_PoV]

or leave behind soap residue or water spots that would affect a camera's ability to see.

So driving through a puddle or getting splattered from the mud kicked up by the vehicle in front will disable an AV? How about purposeful vandalism with a paint aerosol?

And all those fragile sensors that might get dislodged. That would make the cars off-limits to about half the neighbourhoods. "Hey, mister! Do you want your £30,000 LIDAR back .... it'll cost you"

And when that happens, I hate to think what the insurance premiums would be. If these are real problems, rather than media scaremongering (the most likely explanation) then these vehicles have the status of showroom dummies - not real vehicles that are ready for the real world. That's just added another 5 years to their development time.

Obvious

[nospam007]

High class AI cars obviously can only be washed in high class AI car washes.

New business opportunities.

Also, since in the future you'll hail such a car with your phone for a ride, you will care just as much where it gets washed as the Uber car you use now.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

How much energy and time is it going to take to melt off six inches of snow?

OK, from someone who lives in a place where you get sex inches of snow on the cars regularly: You don't.
Snow itself insulates pretty well so you aren't going to melt it off.
Stupid people think that it will melt and start driving with it on.
First time they brake hard it ends up on the windscreen. If it doesn't it will blow off and end up on someone else and block their view.
Worst case scenario: It stays on and the lower layer melts and freezes to ice until next time they use their car.
Then a sheet of ice will come flying either through someones windscreen or through someones stomach.

Here is what normal people do: Brush it off before you start driving. If you live in a place where you get snow you already have a brush for this specific purpose in the car.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[Barsteward]

why not paint them in self cleaning paint that Nissan announced a few years ago? presumably the water running off the paint will clear the sensors at the same time

Re:dealer will become the only approved way to was

[reboot246]

I can think of dozens of professions that need and drive cars and pickup trucks all day every day. Some companies are so small that they're made up of just one or two people. Think: plumbers, electricians, HVAC techs, small delivery vehicles, home health care nurses, etc. Are they going to "summon" their work vehicle every morning? Get a ride with ALL of their tools with Uber? LOL! Look around at the traffic during the work day and notice how many vehicles out there are actually driven by people who are working, not just going shopping or wasting time. We don't all work in offices, with parking lots or parking decks nearby. And I sure as hell don't want cop cars to be self-driving!

I drive a company truck that's one of a "fleet" of eight pickup trucks. I drive it home, to the store, and just about wherever else I need to go. Today I'll drive it 51 miles to work and spend the day driving it with the truck being half on the road and half off the road, at about 1.5 mph. Visualize a vehicle driving on the shoulder of the road, except most roads don't have a shoulder wide enough to get completely off the road. That's with traffic on busy streets and sometimes against traffic in residential neighborhoods. I've even driven it many times through the woods on pipeline right-of-ways. How's a self-driving vehicle going to do that? Sometimes we need several trucks to block traffic when pipe repair work is being done. How's a self-driving truck going to do that?

Speaking of which, how does a self-driving car park in a parking lot with no spaces painted? Or park in an open field next to an athletic field. I don't even know how they got the cars in this discussion to drive into a car wash to begin with!

No, millions of vehicles will still be privately owned despite your vision of Utopia.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[fluffernutter]

On a regular car, sure, you do a few sweeps over the roof and it's mostly gone. That won't work if you have sensors with nooks and crannies up there, and lenses that need to be totally clean.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[Albanach]

For full self-driving you need some mechanism to clear the sensors if they get obscured. That usually means wipers for rain/snow and heaters for frost/snow.

And not just for full self-driving. Why do automakers continue to place the back up camera in a location that's not covered by the rear wiper? Have they never driven on roads covered with salt and melting snow?

Good

[nitehawk214]

Get the robots to fight each other. It is the only way humans can survive.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[nitehawk214]

It is probably just automated car wash companies trying to limit liability for damage to expensive sensors.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[nitehawk214]

I can't even use my back up camera in the winter because its either covered in snow, water, mud, or the worst... salt residue.

joshua what are you doing?

[Joe_Dragon]

joshua what are you doing?

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[david_thornley]

Speaking as someone from Minneapolis, Minnesota, it's not necessary to clean off the top. My wife had a car that would occasionally dump lots of snow onto the windshield when she did a quick stop, but the windshield wipers would clear it off before she had to go again. Mine will dump nothing that the windshield wipers won't handle.

I've had the lower layer ice sometimes, as freezing drizzle turns to snow. No issues.

I don't brush off the top of the car. I use the brush on the windows and hood and lights. I haven't had a problem yet.

Re:And you nervous Nellies worry we won't have job

[MobyDisk]

Ahh yes, but who will clean the cleaners?

Re:dealer will become the only approved way to was

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yup, and those small companies may all lease a self-driving car for their exclusive use. Or maybe you load in at the beginning of the work week and load out at the end (so people can move over the weekend.).

Police departments will be the last to get self-driving cars, as they wouldn't be able to run red lights whenever they are late to the doughnut shop with real enforced rules.

Re:Kinda makes you wonder

[david_thornley]

The car has something like a roof rack installed. It came that way from the dealer. I don't have a good way to clean off the top.