Photography Courtesy Nissan
Driving a Nissan Leaf for 230 miles may not seem like much, but what about a Nissan Leaf making that drive entirely on its own--autonomously?
"Grand Drive," an experiment backed by the UK government and European consortium HumanDrive, was meant to push the capabilities of autonomous driving technology through "a number of UK unique road environments, such as …
Very interesting, but what will the real world cost be?
Any news on what the final tally was on mowed-down pedestrians?
Good for them.
Although it looks to me that their hardware is one gen old- looking at the pictures of what is on the roof... Maybe- I'm just going by looks vs. the ones we see running around here.
Still- it would be nice if there were ANY effort to work on infrastructure- it's REALLY irritating waiting at a light with nobody coming in the opposite direction. Stopping cars less saves a LOT of fuel.
I still think most people who think they want autonomous cars actually just need trains and subways.
slowbird said:I still think most people who think they want autonomous cars actually just need trains and subways.
Trains and subways will never be able to go all the places cars can.
In reply to slowbird :
You aren't wrong. There are days where I really wish I could get on a train to take to work instead of the hour drive in my car.
Unfortunately, it seems like public transportation isn't a priority for some municipalities.
The technology is always impressive. And it's fun to see progress in autonomous cars after the whole flying cars in 2000 thing didn't really happen.
I will never understand how driving can be mundane, though. The monumental effort required to make a self driving car demonstrates how much brain power driving actually requires. The bicycle in the corner of my room is a constant reminder that if I ever start to hate driving, other options are available.
Humans are the ones with range anxiety. Why not just.. remove them from the process? Silly meatsacks!
Totally agree with Alfadriver about smart infrastructure. Traffic problems more or less come from governments. What really pisses me off is when they're openly impudent about it.
I recently drove in Austin Texas and saw a billboard that that said "you aren't in traffic, you ARE traffic. find a better way" with little pictograms of bussing, walking, or light rail.
So let me get this straight. Government taxes for infrastructure. Government uses taxpayer dollars to take out ad space to berate taxpayers for wanting infrastructure? I dont have a 'fu%# you' big enough for how offensive that is. BUILD THE F$*^NG INFRASTRUCTURE. Dont like it, berkeleying quit.
Actually, something similar happened in my hometown of San Antonio. They tried to shove toll roads down our throats for years regarding a large highway interchange and section of road that was to be built on the north end of town. The needed expansion and construction was mysteriously delayed for the entire duration of the push for toll roads. During this time the Texas DOT took out billboards here in town trying to sell the toll road concept. Again, government takes taxpayer dollars, uses taxpayer dollars to take out ads to try to convince taxpayers to let them keep the money, NOT build roads, and give sweetheart 50-year leases of massive public thoroughfares to private for-profit entities. Naturally we got pretty effin mad, they backed off, and that stretch of highway is now finally built, fully public...and about 10 years late. Meanwhile, a huge toll road was built out east of town. Remember when Hennessey posted a vid of a car going 220mph on that new (2012) toll road? Now people say it's so poorly maintained and bumpy you can't even go the speed limit.
My city leadership often talk about trying to make my city more walkable (in lieu of infrastructure improvements). Fine and dandy idea. I walked a lot when i went to Seattle, Montreal.. but those places don't have "try not to die" days where it's so far over 100f that public health alerts are issued exhorting the tax base to please not die of heat related illness. You cannot make that walkable. They also want to reallocate a city sales tax that is currently used to buy and protect land that feeds our freshwater aquifer and give it to our local bus transit authority (in lieu of improving road infrastructure). Cowards. RAISE A NEW TAX for your mandate-ducking agenda.
Governments will do almost anything to abdicate their responsibilities to build road infrastructure.
How long until an autonomous car wins Formula 1 or the Indy 500? That should be simpler to computerize than country roads, intersections, two-way traffic, traffic lights and roundabouts.
1988RedT2 said:Any news on what the final tally was on mowed-down pedestrians?
99% fewer than with human drivers.
The first question I was wondering - which the article seemed to be intentionally not answering - was how many times the vehicle needed human intervention on the trip. Was that 100% computer driving, or did the guy in the driver's seat have to slam on the brakes at some point, or did they switch over to manual control "as a precaution" in congested areas?
And the second question it seemed to have avoided answering - are any Lucas electronics involved in the build? 
Vigo said:Governments will do almost anything to abdicate their responsibilities to build road infrastructure.
Honestly, it's not even building road infrastructure. They don't even want to do the basic maintenance to make roads livable. This is what happens when incompetent people run on a 'no public spending, only private contracts' platform and get their political expenses financed by the same people who bid the contracts. They say it's to reduce government bloat and spending, but private contracts cost exponentially more with less oversight and worse quality.
I mean, if I'm driving down a major street, road or highway and I'm worried about bottoming out a standard factory height Mazda3, something has gone terribly wrong. People aren't buying SUVs only for the high seat position or because they have back problems, it's because the paved roads aren't much better maintained than the gravel ones.
1988RedT2 said:Any news on what the final tally was on mowed-down pedestrians?
Approximately .065 Mustangs.
Tom_Spangler said:slowbird said:I still think most people who think they want autonomous cars actually just need trains and subways.
Trains and subways will never be able to go all the places cars can.
Yes, but they do allow the 3 neurons in their brains to stop firing and have a rest for a while, which is all they want in the first place.
jb229 said:Vigo said:Governments will do almost anything to abdicate their responsibilities to build road infrastructure.
Honestly, it's not even building road infrastructure. They don't even want to do the basic maintenance to make roads livable. This is what happens when incompetent people run on a 'no public spending, only private contracts' platform and get their political expenses financed by the same people who bid the contracts. They say it's to reduce government bloat and spending, but private contracts cost exponentially more with less oversight and worse quality.
Don't forget that fuel taxes (what are supposed to be covering infrastructure maintenance) are disturbingly low. They are lower now than they were in the 80s, long before adjusting for inflation (it was close to 50% back then), or how fuel taxes are per-gallon based instead of per-dollar based and the vehicle fleet has much better fuel economy than it did in 1985.
Driven5 said:1988RedT2 said:Any news on what the final tally was on mowed-down pedestrians?
99% fewer than with human drivers.
I would be interested in comparing the number of pedestrian deaths and total miles driven with both autonomous vs human drivers.
In reply to Knurled. :
I think ~$.70 per gallon is more than enough taxes on gas. Politicians need to do more with less like we have to. The local, state and federal officials are the foxes guarding the chickens and have very little oversight and almost to repercussions when they blow it.
In reply to ebonyandivory :
I submit that it's not. It was around 44 cents in 1985 when gas was under a buck a gallon and everything was way less than 62% cheaper than it is today. If fuel tax followed fuel prices it'd be closer to $1.50/gallon, if it followed inflation it would be even higher.
The problem isn't that the current taxes are too high, the problem is prevailing wages are too low. Real income in the US has been steadily dropping since the 1970s. And in deference to the Site Principals, I'ma stop before I rant myself under a patio.
In reply to Knurled. :
We'll have to disagree that Alabama for instance collecting almost a half-BILLION dollars in fuel taxes per years is more than enough. We obviously have a different view of taxes and spending.
In reply to ebonyandivory :
"Half a billion" sounds like a lot but is it? How many miles of road do they have to maintain and how much does it cost to maintain those miles? How many bridges are in severe disrepair? It's easy to say "they just need to learn to do more with less" but there's only so far that will go when you're talking about building bridges. In that context half a billion sounds like way too little for an entire state in the richest nation on earth.
In reply to dculberson :
My default stance is there's currently several million dollars in each state that's completely wasted. I'll continue to stand by that until I'm proven wrong.
In reply to ebonyandivory :
Several million per state when there's trillions of dollars flowing through our economy every year is not much.
ebonyandivory said:In reply to dculberson :
My default stance is there's currently several million dollars in each state that's completely wasted. I'll continue to stand by that until I'm proven wrong.
Several million dollars may well be wasted. But out of 500M, that's less than 1%. Which is a LOT better than private companies are.
We should be spending billions on infrastructure improvements that actually can use the data of smart car traffic flow and whatnot. The fact that traffic lights are not all programed based on flow and current patterns should scream something needs to change.
Here in Michigan, we don't have good roads because there is no money to fix them. Let alone being able to use the information that smarter and smarter cars bring to the table to better traffic flow and decrease fuel consumption.
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