..and I was supposed to continue reading past the point of you calling me an asshole? Fuck you. Also, hypocrite and projecting much? You're ranting at me, and your entire 'comment' (if it can be called such) just screams 'I'm an asshole!' at the world. Apparently you don't understand the entire concept of 'conversation'. Go back to 4chan/b, jerk, that's about the only place your (low) level of behaviour is acceptable.
I got sad news for you, friend: The United States that you and I both thought existed when we were growing up? It was nothing more than a fantasy. The U.S. that the Founding Fathers envisioned and laid the groundwork for existed, maybe, for a few decades past it's initial creation, but past that greedy and power-hungry people (like the entire Bush family of traitors, for instance) began subverting and twisting it into something else, while still waving the Patriotic flag and claiming what a wonderful democratic republic we were. Sad, but true. Sure, we were the Good Guys in WWII, but that was probably the last time we were, and it sure as hell started all going down hill from there.
When you say 'our greatest dreams', I'm pretty sure you're referring to maybe, at best, 1% of the population. I'm of the opinion that the vast majority of people, at best, when presented with all the work being done to discover exoplanets, search for life outside our solar system, and to generally understand the Universe as a whole, will say 'gee, that's nice, but how does it make my cellphone battery last longer?', or 'gee, that's nice, but how does it make gasoline prices cheaper?', or 'gee, that's nice, but how does it make my grocery bill lower?'. At worst they say 'why are we wasting money on stupid things like that, nobody cares!'. In other words, I am of the opinion that the majority of people are lacking in vision and imagination.
I'm not even going to respond to the guy who commented above you since he doesn't seem to understand, as you pointed out, basic terminology when discussing batteries.
So far as my post being 'ranty': How so? I'm asking valid questions about this development, not dismissing it and insulting people or anything like that.
Sadly, you don't seem to understand all that well the difference between 'rechargable' and 'not rechargable' either. If you have to dismantle it and completely remanufacture it, then it's most definitely 'not rechargable' any more than a common 1.5V alkaline D-cell battery is 'rechargable'
If you're not going to take any of the questions and points I raised seriously, then please stop commenting, it's counter-productive to having a conversation about this technology.
For starters: I am not all that impressed. They're dressing this up as 'rechargable', when in fact it is emphatically not so, this is a 'primary' battery, not a rechargable 'secondary' battery, and 'recharging' it in this context is just new-speak for 'recycling' it.
OK, let's put that aside for a moment. The real questions are: 1) What is the estimated, large-scale, ultimate carbon footprint of using this battery technology? Is it better or worse than Li+ technologies? If it's about the same or worse then maybe we'd better think twice about this. 2) What is the estimated ongoing cost to the end-user/consumer assuming it became the standard for electric vehicles and as such proliferated throughout the market? If the cost every few months (or sooner, for heavy drivers of their vehicles) is excessive then it's just not practical from a fiscal point of view. 3) For both the above, assume that the technology would be, generously enough, licensed immediately (or at least soon) to 3rd party companies, or better yet (perfect world) made open-source and/or royalty-free (because the creators/backers are such humanitarians, LOL) for the betterment of all mankind. 4) Now that #3 has got the rose-colored-glasses perspective out of the way, let's assume they're greedy bastards who aggressively enforce any patents they have on the technology, and only allow companies that pay licensing fees/royalties to recycle the battery packs, vehicle owners are only allowed to get swaps at 'authorized facilities', etc., and the cost naturally is passed along to the consumer.
Needless to say I'm somewhat leery of technology like this. Part of me wants to say it sounds like a step backwards. Here's another question: 5) How much aluminum is lost (percentage estimate?) per cycle of this type of battery? Questions 1 through 4 aside, is it really long-term practical from a technical standpoint, or is it wasteful of raw materials, turning aluminum into a non-usable waste product?
Um.. I thought a neutron star was mainly neutronium, with a layer of degenerate matter on top of that, and maybe a layer of normal matter on top of that?
But, see, it's not going to happen. At least not anytime soon, because it won't be as safe as you think it will be.. Do you have children? Ask yourself: Would you really put your child(ren), alone, in a driverless vehicle, and send them off to Grandma's house? Or would you think it would be better for an adult to accompany them? You could argue that airlines allow unaccompanied children aboard flights.. but in that case flight attendants (adults!) are made responsible for them. Computerized passenger mass-transit aircraft are a more-or-less mature technology, can take off and land all by themselves even (most dangerous times for any aircraft), and the systems involved have multiple redundancies -- yet there's still a human pilot and co-pilot aboard, with a full suite of manual controls. Why? Because there's always a chance of it falling out of the sky and killing hundreds of people. Trains, for all I care, could be 100% computer controlled. The SF Bay Area's BART system was, and still is, designed that, way -- yet there are human operators because something can and sometimes does go wrong with the system. Automobiles aren't and shouldn't be any different: there should always be a set of manual controls, preferably with mechanical linkages to the steering and braking systems, that can completely override the automatic system at any moment, and the State should always require a licensed driver to be at the controls at all times. Same reason: You can't program for ALL circumstances or emergency situations. Also, what if, like some have commented elsewhere, you just want to 'drive around' for the fun of it? Literally randomly? You can't program that any more than you can write a program that creates a master-class painting or other art, either. Finally, I personally believe that humans being required to learn fewer things and fewer skills is not good for us as a race, it's making us lazy and less intelligent overall. We're becoming just a race of Consumers, rather than Makers and Builders, and that's heading down a dead-end street if I ever saw it. Also, on a more personal note, you can take away my motorcycle when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands, thank you very much. Also, as a side note, what about, as some have pointed out, bicycles? Are you going to take those away from everyone, too, just because they're operated on public roads? I think not.
Current legislation mirrors what I'm claiming should be: Manual controls, licensed drivers only. Consensus says that's the way it's going to stay. Please do enjoy your full autopilot mode if and when it becomes available (at dramatic cost, by the way, it'll never be cheap), but you'll just have to put up with that nasty 'ol steering wheel in your way.
..and for the record: I don't own a dog, and I don't 'do whatever the hell I please and screw everyone else', either, so don't get the idea that IDGAF about how I affect everyone else -- but at the same time I'm not going to let 'majority rule' dictate how I live my life, either. In this case: We're either the master of our machines, or they are the master of US, and I'll be damned if any machine is going to rule ME.
Some of you early-adopters may laugh at this, but this has been my upgrade strategy for decades now and from a bang-for-the-buck perspective it's extremely effective.
If you can keep your self-driven car from hitting anything else, fine. You can't.
I've proven year after year that I'm a competent driver that doesn't cause accidents (which debunks your 'dog' analogy), yet, again, you're mroe than happy to take away MY choices just to satisfy YOUR desires. You sound like a jerk that just doesn't like dogs, regardless of whether or not they're behaving themselves. Good thing that people like you don't get to decide for everyone else, you're obviously the exact wrong sort of person to be allowed that sort of responsibility. Your 'dream' will NEVER become a reality.
You're making an assumption that it will ever be allowed to 'become the norm' at all, which I and many others believe will never happen. I'll ask you the same question I asked to someone else who commented: Why do you want to give up your ability to choose, and more to the point, where do you get off thinking it's OK to take away MY or anyone else's ability to choose? How do you feel about it when someone else takes away YOUR choices? Do you really think that's right?
Listen, buddy (and everyone else who is taking the opposing viewpoint, here), it comes down to CHOICE: Why are you advocating giving up yours and everyone else's CHOICES? Why are you advocating not having the CHOICE to control the vehicle you're riding in? Why are you CHOOSING to give up that control to someone you've never met and will never meet? What it comes right down to, is: I don't believe you for a minute. I think you THINK this is right and you THINK you'd be OK with it, but you're wrong, you would NOT be OK with it when it comes down to it. Either that or you've somehow been made into forever a child that would rather have some 'adult' make your decisions for you. In my world, at least, 'being an adult' means making your own decisions, taking care of yourself, and taking responsibility for your own actions, especially when you make a mistake. Me? I've been driving for ~35 years, and have only ever been in an accident that was my fault ONCE. Note that that 35 years includes 10 years with nothing but a motorcycle, and by the way I have all my original bodyparts, no prosthetics, so you can't say that I'm the typical shit driver you find littering the roadways these days. At late 40's I'm still riding a motorcycle almost daily, and drive a pickup truck with a 5-speed stick. I am NOT interested in someone taking away MY choice to be in control of the vehicle I'm travelling in -- and I do NOT believe for a moment that I'm alone in that, or that I'm the only man left on the planet who is actually competent to operate my own vehicles safely. So, then: Who are YOU (and anyone else who shares your viewpoints) to decide for ME that my ability to choose should be taken away?
I steadfastly maintain: 'Autonomous' vehicles should always maintain a set of manual controls, which may be used at any time, for as long as the operator of the vehicle wishes to use them. Period. Not negotiable.
Sounds to me more like 'little rolling coffins'. Why not make them bio-degradable as well so when something screws up and a dozen people get killed, you don't even have to bother prying them out of the damned things, you just dig a hole in the ground and drop them in? Honestly, am I the only one who thinks that getting into a box on wheels that you have NO direct control over is a bad idea? At least with trains and buses there's someone at the controls, even if it's otherwise automatic, who can override the system if there's a problem, but this? No thanks. I can't be the only one who thinks it's a bad idea.
Oh, and one more thing that I keep forgetting to bring up: How do you feel about stepping into a car with no manual controls and discovering that you're being hijacked, the computer is ignoring your requests (since they'd amount to that, not commands) to stop or alter course, and have no control over steering or braking? Some future script-kiddie with a sick sense of humor, or some terrorist organization decides to use autonomous cars as a WMD by having them run off the road, killing the passengers, or run into crowds or buildings, killing the passengers and bystanders? Don't tell me 'it won't happen', either, because it will.
Honestly, I'd like someone to explain to me how having a mix of so-called 'autonomous' cars and human-operated cars on the road is going to make anything safer. While you're at it I'd like someone to explain to me how state-of-the-art in software quality control has reached such a high level that we've nothing whatsoever to fear so far as software bugs and glitches, and also how 'the car will come safely to a stop in an emergency' is a 100% guaranteed thing. I'd furthermore like someone to make a good argument for not erring on the side of caution, which would dictate that a trained, tested, qualified, licensed, and experienced human being have completely pre-emptive manual controls available to them at all times in any moving vehicle, and by that I do not mean some 'panic button' on an otherwise control-less dashboard that's just connected to a GPIO line to the computer actually controlling the vehicle, I mean mechanical connections to the steering and braking systems.
Excuse me, but who the hell are you even talking to? Not me, that's for sure. I stopped by to check another comment I left on a totally different subject and notice a shit-ton of comments left on this one -- and here's this shit-storm going on. Why are you even arguing with this person, anyway?
Millions of people fly in airplanes every day that rely on computer controls
An 'autopilot', however sophisticated, is NOT a 'self-flying airplane'. There is a PILOT, and a CO-PILOT on board, and they're fully trained, tested, and qualified, and experienced to handle the aircraft themselves. The same should go for ground vehicles on public roads. I would NEVER get in a car that had no manual controls whatsoever.
If you or anyone else is actually saying that you can't live without your car, your computer, your cellphone, and so on, then I feel very sorry for you. If you're saying that you just can't live without a 100% automatic car to drive you around, then I think you're a pathetic mess. Don't buy a car at all, take public transit, or call a cab, or (shudder!) walk.
Why? Because we appear to be on track, as a race, to becoming less and less educated, less and less skilled, and less and less capable of taking care of oursevles, that's why. Do you really want to live in a world where you're almost entirely dependent on machines for your basic survival? Shouldn't the whole point of civilization be that people become smarter, healthier, more knowledgeable, and more highly skilled, rather than more and more like animals in a zoo? Shouldn't our technological advancements be enabling us, rather than limiting us? Minds share some things in common with bodies: Without a purpose, they atrophy. I'm no kid, I'm over 40, and I see a world that is moving towards everyone getting lazier and lazier, both physically and mentally, and I don't like the implications of that and where it seems to be leading us. People are getting fatter and overall less healthy, and rather than technology enabling people to reach higher levels of intellect, all it's doing is allowing them to slide through life having to know almost nothing, while consuming 'empty calories' in the form of twitch games, so-called 'social media', streaming video, etc., so their minds are getting as morbidly obese and dysfunctional as their bodies. Remember the movie Wall-E? It was supposed to be a cautionary tale.
If nothing else: Humans should always be the masters of their technology -- not the other way around. Not being able to pilot your own ground vehicle? That's the technology mastering YOU, not the other way around.
Oh, and by the way: Stuffing your child into a machine, which you're 'trusting' to get them to Point 'B' safely? Highly irresponsible. Drinking so much that you can't legally drive yourself home? Also highly irresponsible.
"Should the Unlicensed Be Allowed To 'Drive' Autonomous Cars?" Hell, no! Not any more than non-pilots be allowed to operate aircraft! It'll be decades, if ever, that so-called 'autonomous' cars are actually reliable and tested enough to be trusted to have no qualified driver at the controls, and even then if I had anything to say about it that will still never happen. People should always be properly trained, tested, licensed, and checked periodically for competency if they are to operate any sort of motor vehicle. It's bad enough out on the roads as it is, the last thing we need are people who have no idea how to drive, or more to the point, what to do in an emergency situation.
That's kind of my point, actually, it's not really news. These sorts of developments happen all the time and really nobody but engineers who need to use them notice. This smacks more of Toyota trying to generate some positive press for themselves than anything else.
It's not as big a deal as they're making it out to be, really. It's got a lower 'on' resistance. Similar reductions in power lost to waste heat could be accomplished by using more MOSFETs in parallel. Don't get me wrong, it's a useful development, but it's not earth-shaking news either.
Slashdot Mirror
..and I was supposed to continue reading past the point of you calling me an asshole? Fuck you. Also, hypocrite and projecting much? You're ranting at me, and your entire 'comment' (if it can be called such) just screams 'I'm an asshole!' at the world. Apparently you don't understand the entire concept of 'conversation'. Go back to 4chan/b, jerk, that's about the only place your (low) level of behaviour is acceptable.
I got sad news for you, friend: The United States that you and I both thought existed when we were growing up? It was nothing more than a fantasy. The U.S. that the Founding Fathers envisioned and laid the groundwork for existed, maybe, for a few decades past it's initial creation, but past that greedy and power-hungry people (like the entire Bush family of traitors, for instance) began subverting and twisting it into something else, while still waving the Patriotic flag and claiming what a wonderful democratic republic we were. Sad, but true. Sure, we were the Good Guys in WWII, but that was probably the last time we were, and it sure as hell started all going down hill from there.
When you say 'our greatest dreams', I'm pretty sure you're referring to maybe, at best, 1% of the population. I'm of the opinion that the vast majority of people, at best, when presented with all the work being done to discover exoplanets, search for life outside our solar system, and to generally understand the Universe as a whole, will say 'gee, that's nice, but how does it make my cellphone battery last longer?', or 'gee, that's nice, but how does it make gasoline prices cheaper?', or 'gee, that's nice, but how does it make my grocery bill lower?'. At worst they say 'why are we wasting money on stupid things like that, nobody cares!'. In other words, I am of the opinion that the majority of people are lacking in vision and imagination.
I'm not even going to respond to the guy who commented above you since he doesn't seem to understand, as you pointed out, basic terminology when discussing batteries.
So far as my post being 'ranty': How so? I'm asking valid questions about this development, not dismissing it and insulting people or anything like that.
Sadly, you don't seem to understand all that well the difference between 'rechargable' and 'not rechargable' either. If you have to dismantle it and completely remanufacture it, then it's most definitely 'not rechargable' any more than a common 1.5V alkaline D-cell battery is 'rechargable'
If you're not going to take any of the questions and points I raised seriously, then please stop commenting, it's counter-productive to having a conversation about this technology.
Then why do we have a word to differentiate them?
For starters: I am not all that impressed. They're dressing this up as 'rechargable', when in fact it is emphatically not so, this is a 'primary' battery, not a rechargable 'secondary' battery, and 'recharging' it in this context is just new-speak for 'recycling' it.
OK, let's put that aside for a moment. The real questions are:
1) What is the estimated, large-scale, ultimate carbon footprint of using this battery technology? Is it better or worse than Li+ technologies? If it's about the same or worse then maybe we'd better think twice about this.
2) What is the estimated ongoing cost to the end-user/consumer assuming it became the standard for electric vehicles and as such proliferated throughout the market? If the cost every few months (or sooner, for heavy drivers of their vehicles) is excessive then it's just not practical from a fiscal point of view.
3) For both the above, assume that the technology would be, generously enough, licensed immediately (or at least soon) to 3rd party companies, or better yet (perfect world) made open-source and/or royalty-free (because the creators/backers are such humanitarians, LOL) for the betterment of all mankind.
4) Now that #3 has got the rose-colored-glasses perspective out of the way, let's assume they're greedy bastards who aggressively enforce any patents they have on the technology, and only allow companies that pay licensing fees/royalties to recycle the battery packs, vehicle owners are only allowed to get swaps at 'authorized facilities', etc., and the cost naturally is passed along to the consumer.
Needless to say I'm somewhat leery of technology like this. Part of me wants to say it sounds like a step backwards. Here's another question:
5) How much aluminum is lost (percentage estimate?) per cycle of this type of battery? Questions 1 through 4 aside, is it really long-term practical from a technical standpoint, or is it wasteful of raw materials, turning aluminum into a non-usable waste product?
Um.. I thought a neutron star was mainly neutronium, with a layer of degenerate matter on top of that, and maybe a layer of normal matter on top of that?
But, see, it's not going to happen. At least not anytime soon, because it won't be as safe as you think it will be.. Do you have children? Ask yourself: Would you really put your child(ren), alone, in a driverless vehicle, and send them off to Grandma's house? Or would you think it would be better for an adult to accompany them? You could argue that airlines allow unaccompanied children aboard flights.. but in that case flight attendants (adults!) are made responsible for them. Computerized passenger mass-transit aircraft are a more-or-less mature technology, can take off and land all by themselves even (most dangerous times for any aircraft), and the systems involved have multiple redundancies -- yet there's still a human pilot and co-pilot aboard, with a full suite of manual controls. Why? Because there's always a chance of it falling out of the sky and killing hundreds of people. Trains, for all I care, could be 100% computer controlled. The SF Bay Area's BART system was, and still is, designed that, way -- yet there are human operators because something can and sometimes does go wrong with the system. Automobiles aren't and shouldn't be any different: there should always be a set of manual controls, preferably with mechanical linkages to the steering and braking systems, that can completely override the automatic system at any moment, and the State should always require a licensed driver to be at the controls at all times. Same reason: You can't program for ALL circumstances or emergency situations. Also, what if, like some have commented elsewhere, you just want to 'drive around' for the fun of it? Literally randomly? You can't program that any more than you can write a program that creates a master-class painting or other art, either. Finally, I personally believe that humans being required to learn fewer things and fewer skills is not good for us as a race, it's making us lazy and less intelligent overall. We're becoming just a race of Consumers, rather than Makers and Builders, and that's heading down a dead-end street if I ever saw it. Also, on a more personal note, you can take away my motorcycle when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands, thank you very much. Also, as a side note, what about, as some have pointed out, bicycles? Are you going to take those away from everyone, too, just because they're operated on public roads? I think not.
Current legislation mirrors what I'm claiming should be: Manual controls, licensed drivers only. Consensus says that's the way it's going to stay. Please do enjoy your full autopilot mode if and when it becomes available (at dramatic cost, by the way, it'll never be cheap), but you'll just have to put up with that nasty 'ol steering wheel in your way.
..and for the record: I don't own a dog, and I don't 'do whatever the hell I please and screw everyone else', either, so don't get the idea that IDGAF about how I affect everyone else -- but at the same time I'm not going to let 'majority rule' dictate how I live my life, either. In this case: We're either the master of our machines, or they are the master of US, and I'll be damned if any machine is going to rule ME.
Some of you early-adopters may laugh at this, but this has been my upgrade strategy for decades now and from a bang-for-the-buck perspective it's extremely effective.
I propose they refer to their Next Generation Polymer Thermal Interface Material as 'NexGen Poly TIM'.
If you can keep your self-driven car from hitting anything else, fine. You can't.
I've proven year after year that I'm a competent driver that doesn't cause accidents (which debunks your 'dog' analogy), yet, again, you're mroe than happy to take away MY choices just to satisfy YOUR desires. You sound like a jerk that just doesn't like dogs, regardless of whether or not they're behaving themselves. Good thing that people like you don't get to decide for everyone else, you're obviously the exact wrong sort of person to be allowed that sort of responsibility. Your 'dream' will NEVER become a reality.
Once this becomes the norm..
You're making an assumption that it will ever be allowed to 'become the norm' at all, which I and many others believe will never happen. I'll ask you the same question I asked to someone else who commented: Why do you want to give up your ability to choose, and more to the point, where do you get off thinking it's OK to take away MY or anyone else's ability to choose? How do you feel about it when someone else takes away YOUR choices? Do you really think that's right?
Listen, buddy (and everyone else who is taking the opposing viewpoint, here), it comes down to CHOICE: Why are you advocating giving up yours and everyone else's CHOICES? Why are you advocating not having the CHOICE to control the vehicle you're riding in? Why are you CHOOSING to give up that control to someone you've never met and will never meet? What it comes right down to, is: I don't believe you for a minute. I think you THINK this is right and you THINK you'd be OK with it, but you're wrong, you would NOT be OK with it when it comes down to it. Either that or you've somehow been made into forever a child that would rather have some 'adult' make your decisions for you. In my world, at least, 'being an adult' means making your own decisions, taking care of yourself, and taking responsibility for your own actions, especially when you make a mistake. Me? I've been driving for ~35 years, and have only ever been in an accident that was my fault ONCE. Note that that 35 years includes 10 years with nothing but a motorcycle, and by the way I have all my original bodyparts, no prosthetics, so you can't say that I'm the typical shit driver you find littering the roadways these days. At late 40's I'm still riding a motorcycle almost daily, and drive a pickup truck with a 5-speed stick. I am NOT interested in someone taking away MY choice to be in control of the vehicle I'm travelling in -- and I do NOT believe for a moment that I'm alone in that, or that I'm the only man left on the planet who is actually competent to operate my own vehicles safely. So, then: Who are YOU (and anyone else who shares your viewpoints) to decide for ME that my ability to choose should be taken away?
I steadfastly maintain: 'Autonomous' vehicles should always maintain a set of manual controls, which may be used at any time, for as long as the operator of the vehicle wishes to use them. Period. Not negotiable.
Sounds to me more like 'little rolling coffins'. Why not make them bio-degradable as well so when something screws up and a dozen people get killed, you don't even have to bother prying them out of the damned things, you just dig a hole in the ground and drop them in? Honestly, am I the only one who thinks that getting into a box on wheels that you have NO direct control over is a bad idea? At least with trains and buses there's someone at the controls, even if it's otherwise automatic, who can override the system if there's a problem, but this? No thanks. I can't be the only one who thinks it's a bad idea.
Oh, and one more thing that I keep forgetting to bring up: How do you feel about stepping into a car with no manual controls and discovering that you're being hijacked, the computer is ignoring your requests (since they'd amount to that, not commands) to stop or alter course, and have no control over steering or braking? Some future script-kiddie with a sick sense of humor, or some terrorist organization decides to use autonomous cars as a WMD by having them run off the road, killing the passengers, or run into crowds or buildings, killing the passengers and bystanders? Don't tell me 'it won't happen', either, because it will.
Honestly, I'd like someone to explain to me how having a mix of so-called 'autonomous' cars and human-operated cars on the road is going to make anything safer. While you're at it I'd like someone to explain to me how state-of-the-art in software quality control has reached such a high level that we've nothing whatsoever to fear so far as software bugs and glitches, and also how 'the car will come safely to a stop in an emergency' is a 100% guaranteed thing. I'd furthermore like someone to make a good argument for not erring on the side of caution, which would dictate that a trained, tested, qualified, licensed, and experienced human being have completely pre-emptive manual controls available to them at all times in any moving vehicle, and by that I do not mean some 'panic button' on an otherwise control-less dashboard that's just connected to a GPIO line to the computer actually controlling the vehicle, I mean mechanical connections to the steering and braking systems.
Excuse me, but who the hell are you even talking to? Not me, that's for sure. I stopped by to check another comment I left on a totally different subject and notice a shit-ton of comments left on this one -- and here's this shit-storm going on. Why are you even arguing with this person, anyway?
Millions of people fly in airplanes every day that rely on computer controls
An 'autopilot', however sophisticated, is NOT a 'self-flying airplane'. There is a PILOT, and a CO-PILOT on board, and they're fully trained, tested, and qualified, and experienced to handle the aircraft themselves. The same should go for ground vehicles on public roads. I would NEVER get in a car that had no manual controls whatsoever.
If you or anyone else is actually saying that you can't live without your car, your computer, your cellphone, and so on, then I feel very sorry for you. If you're saying that you just can't live without a 100% automatic car to drive you around, then I think you're a pathetic mess. Don't buy a car at all, take public transit, or call a cab, or (shudder!) walk.
Why? Because we appear to be on track, as a race, to becoming less and less educated, less and less skilled, and less and less capable of taking care of oursevles, that's why. Do you really want to live in a world where you're almost entirely dependent on machines for your basic survival? Shouldn't the whole point of civilization be that people become smarter, healthier, more knowledgeable, and more highly skilled, rather than more and more like animals in a zoo? Shouldn't our technological advancements be enabling us, rather than limiting us? Minds share some things in common with bodies: Without a purpose, they atrophy. I'm no kid, I'm over 40, and I see a world that is moving towards everyone getting lazier and lazier, both physically and mentally, and I don't like the implications of that and where it seems to be leading us. People are getting fatter and overall less healthy, and rather than technology enabling people to reach higher levels of intellect, all it's doing is allowing them to slide through life having to know almost nothing, while consuming 'empty calories' in the form of twitch games, so-called 'social media', streaming video, etc., so their minds are getting as morbidly obese and dysfunctional as their bodies. Remember the movie Wall-E? It was supposed to be a cautionary tale.
If nothing else: Humans should always be the masters of their technology -- not the other way around. Not being able to pilot your own ground vehicle? That's the technology mastering YOU, not the other way around.
Oh, and by the way: Stuffing your child into a machine, which you're 'trusting' to get them to Point 'B' safely? Highly irresponsible. Drinking so much that you can't legally drive yourself home? Also highly irresponsible.
"Should the Unlicensed Be Allowed To 'Drive' Autonomous Cars?" Hell, no! Not any more than non-pilots be allowed to operate aircraft! It'll be decades, if ever, that so-called 'autonomous' cars are actually reliable and tested enough to be trusted to have no qualified driver at the controls, and even then if I had anything to say about it that will still never happen. People should always be properly trained, tested, licensed, and checked periodically for competency if they are to operate any sort of motor vehicle. It's bad enough out on the roads as it is, the last thing we need are people who have no idea how to drive, or more to the point, what to do in an emergency situation.
The Indian truck manufactuer Tata has been using wood as a construction material for quite some time now.
That's kind of my point, actually, it's not really news. These sorts of developments happen all the time and really nobody but engineers who need to use them notice. This smacks more of Toyota trying to generate some positive press for themselves than anything else.
Go back to 4chan, kid.
It's not as big a deal as they're making it out to be, really. It's got a lower 'on' resistance. Similar reductions in power lost to waste heat could be accomplished by using more MOSFETs in parallel. Don't get me wrong, it's a useful development, but it's not earth-shaking news either.