Driverless Cars

[3930dave]

Lot's of things can be dangerous. I wonder how well the typical, cell phone equipped, driver would have done in the same situation? With these assisted driver technologies, if the driver is not engaged, their going to get in trouble. Doesn't hurt to understand how these technologies work though.

Count me in the 80% or so of drivers that consider themselves "better than average" .

Whatever the tech is, I want to know the limitations, esp. if it can have lethal consequences.....

Humans screw up too, but at least there is an element of individual control/choice available to each person. I don't have the personal time/money/motivation to write my own code for a self-driving car though.....

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

Recently bought a new car equipped with the latest driver assist bells & whistles. First thing I did was to turn them all off! No way some friggin' computer is going to play with the brakes when a 70 MPH emergency lane change is needed in a life/death situation!

Like cell phones..... people buy them, and also promptly turn many features Off.

My biggest issue is reliability........ a sore point with me is when an additive non-core piece of tech (bell/whistle) faults, and takes down a primary function, or the whole piece of equipment.....

Rgds, D.

 

[airbiscuit]

Bah Humbug with technology. The horseless carriage will never replace the horse and buggy.

Who needs safety glass, redundant braking, anti lock brakes, power steering, automatic transmissions, seat belts, air bags, navigation, all wheel drive, ...

We will never be able to improve on the horse and buggy.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Bah Humbug with technology. The horseless carriage will never replace the horse and buggy.

Who needs safety glass, redundant braking, anti lock brakes, power steering, automatic transmissions, seat belts, air bags, navigation, all wheel drive, ...

We will never be able to improve on the horse and buggy.

Said the amish man...

 

[airbiscuit]

Said the Luddite.

 

[vvanders]

Nice! didn't even sound like a brake lockup happenned.

Having done a few panic stops in that same model over ~75k miles there's not really much sounds associated with planting the brake pedal to the floor. The ABS is pretty aggressive about not letting the tires slip and the front tires have a pretty wide contact patch.

As a few others have said, plenty of things can kill you if you don't respect them appropriately. I've a bit of experience with the system as we got one of the first dual motor cars and had ~15k on the odo before the OTA enabled it. Each time you engage it there's a very clear message that it's an assist and you should be ready to take over at any time.

You can configure the follow distance via a dial on a stick off the left side of the steering wheel. It lets you set a follow distance of 7(about 1sec per 10mph) down to 1 where you're basically up someone's tailpipe. I'd be curious what setting they had enabled in the test.

That said, I rarely use it for >40mph stuff these days(aside from the adaptive cruise control). The really useful feature of this is rush hour traffic. Speeds are low enough to easily respond to anyone cutting you off and takes off all the mental overhead of stop and go since the car will resume from a full stop.

I think the jury is still out if the public is ready for this type of an assist, even moreso considering how many faces I see planted in a cellphone every time I head into Seattle. That said I find it pretty easy to understand the limitations and I'd sure be pretty disappointed to move to another car that didn't have it.

 

[k0ua]

Bah Humbug with technology. The horseless carriage will never replace the horse and buggy.

Who needs safety glass, redundant braking, anti lock brakes, power steering, automatic transmissions, seat belts, air bags, navigation, all wheel drive, ...

We will never be able to improve on the horse and buggy.

There is nothing wrong with advancing technology, and even this technology will be mainstream, someday, and maybe someday soon. We are just saying that this tech is not fully cooked. More lab time is needed. The WILL make it work, too much is at stake to quit now.

 

[k0ua]

I think this is the key observation. A system like this is almost guaranteed to breed complacency...pretty soon a user is bored with being the back-up driver and shifts attention to other things leaving the car's AI to do ALL the driving.

Agreed, The driverless car needs to be 100% responsible, or the system need to be turned off and the human driver 100% responsible. You can't have a system that will do lane keeping, scanning for obstacles forward, and either braking to stop or slow down and able to do this safely about 90 percent of the time, and expect the human to be "paying attention" that 100 % of the time but doing nothing. Who ever thought this out doesn't know squat about human behavior. Humans cannot operate this way. It is not in their nature. If humans don't have anything to do with the driving part, they WILL find something to do. That may include reading a book, texting on the phone, talking with other passengers, because that is all they are at this point, just a passenger.

When the driverless car can truly take you from point A to point B safely 100% of the time and not sail into the ***-end of other vehicles or run over children in the road, then we will have arrived. I believe it will happen. It is just a matter of time. But at this point, driverless vehicles are dangerous to the people inside of them and the others that share the road. Cars with drivers are also dangerous to the passengers, and to others that share the road, but until driverless cars can match or exceed this level of safety, then I don't think they should be on the road. I think lab testing should continue and take what we have learned and improve upon it. We will get there.

 

[3930dave]

That said, I rarely use it for >40mph stuff these days(aside from the adaptive cruise control). The really useful feature of this is rush hour traffic. Speeds are low enough to easily respond to anyone cutting you off and takes off all the mental overhead of stop and go since the car will resume from a full stop.

I think the jury is still out if the public is ready for this type of an assist, even moreso considering how many faces I see planted in a cellphone every time I head into Seattle. That said I find it pretty easy to understand the limitations and I'd sure be pretty disappointed to move to another car that didn't have it.

Winner Winner - Chicken Dinner !

Yeah, that's my point...... understand the limitations, and consciously choose when to use the tech, and more importantly - when not to.

So if raising questions make me an unbelieving Neanderthal, I'm good with that , anyday.

Even pretty basic (relative to the time-frame) tech, that should be bulletproof, can have huge impacts (pun not intended).

General Motors ignition switch recalls - Wikipedia

Rgds, D.

 

[coobie]

I take my copilot with me most places I go.I find it better than auto pilot.Better conversation to/LOL

 

[cqaigy2]

I take my copilot with me most places I go.I find it better than auto pilot.Better conversation to/LOL

Yuppers and navigation aid.:thumbsup:

 

[Soundguy]

ABS is ABS, however.. when the car's radar says the item is right in front of you, at some point, you need max brakes.... like the depictions of a bike riding in behind a car and you hear the car physically skid to a stop. so ABS at some point goes max on those collision avoidance systems.

Having done a few panic stops in that same model over ~75k miles there's not really much sounds associated with planting the brake pedal to the floor. The ABS is pretty aggressive about not letting the tires slip and the front tires have a pretty wide contact patch.

As a few others have said, plenty of things can kill you if you don't respect them appropriately. I've a bit of experience with the system as we got one of the first dual motor cars and had ~15k on the odo before the OTA enabled it. Each time you engage it there's a very clear message that it's an assist and you should be ready to take over at any time.

You can configure the follow distance via a dial on a stick off the left side of the steering wheel. It lets you set a follow distance of 7(about 1sec per 10mph) down to 1 where you're basically up someone's tailpipe. I'd be curious what setting they had enabled in the test.

That said, I rarely use it for >40mph stuff these days(aside from the adaptive cruise control). The really useful feature of this is rush hour traffic. Speeds are low enough to easily respond to anyone cutting you off and takes off all the mental overhead of stop and go since the car will resume from a full stop.

I think the jury is still out if the public is ready for this type of an assist, even moreso considering how many faces I see planted in a cellphone every time I head into Seattle. That said I find it pretty easy to understand the limitations and I'd sure be pretty disappointed to move to another car that didn't have it.

 

[vvanders]

ABS is ABS, however.. when the car's radar says the item is right in front of you, at some point, you need max brakes.... like the depictions of a bike riding in behind a car and you hear the car physically skid to a stop. so ABS at some point goes max on those collision avoidance systems.

Yeah, however I've planted the pedal pretty deep and never once gotten any significant audible feedback(this is on a car that's much quieter and you can hear road/tire noise). Like I said, they're wide tires(245/45) with almost 10" contact patch and the car is not lightweight. Closer to a truck(~5200lbs) than compared to a sedan or similar sized car.

 

[Jstpssng]

Yeah, however I've planted the pedal pretty deep and never once gotten any significant audible feedback(this is on a car that's much quieter and you can hear road/tire noise). Like I said, they're wide tires(245/45) with almost 10" contact patch and the car is not lightweight. Closer to a truck(~5200lbs) than compared to a sedan or similar sized car.

The problem with ABS is that it relies on the tire with the weakest traction to stop you; in low traction conditions- when you WANT maximum stopping power- all that it does is give you more time to think about what you want to hit. I hate ABS and used to disconnect it; but the liability of that supercedes the decreased stopping time.

 

[vvanders]

The problem with ABS is that it relies on the tire with the weakest traction to stop you; in low traction conditions- when you WANT maximum stopping power- all that it does is give you more time to think about what you want to hit. I hate ABS and used to disconnect it; but the liability of that supercedes the decreased stopping time.

Depends on the ABS system, some of them work at the differential which means they're subject to working with the least traction wheel of the ABS system like you pointed out. Tesla does it per-wheel, there's actually an open differential in both axles and the electric brake controller limits slip on a per-wheel basis when applying power and in reverse under ABS conditions.

Static friction(not slipping) is going to be better than dynamic friction(slipping) and some of the new systems are really good at walking that knife edge under a heavy braking situation which is going to give you a shorter stopping distance. Current tech can articulate the VFD(regen braking) and brake controllers in sub-3ms range which is way better than either you or I could hope to be in a perfect scenario.

 

[3930dave]

The biggest benefit of ABS is the potential retention of steering control. But, that doesn't amount to much of a benefit unless the driver (or in this case, computer) takes the appropriate evasive action.

We've beaten on that horse in other threads (not that I mind it being discussed here.....), but a lot of the time, stopping distance does not decrease significantly with ABS - this is not well understood by the general public, and IMO is a good example of people projecting false hopes onto a technology.

Long ago (marketing is mostly on a totally different vector today.....), Audi used to have a dash switch to shut Off ABS - there are conditions where you stop faster with ABS off. But, that requires a driver to Make a Decision, and Take Action...... yeah, I know I'm off my rocker, hallucinating about the olde daze again

Salt belt country has a few twists to ABS use.... brake calipers tend to seize up, esp. rear calipers. W/O ABS, as rear braking performance declines, even just moderately attentive drivers will notice that they are (way too) easily locking up the front calipers - any sensible owner would get this glaringly obvious brake fault addressed.

With ABS, in the above scenario, braking distance just gets progressively longer over time, with no dramatic symptom exhibited. Many drivers won't notice this slow deterioration of performance.

A lot of the heavy marketing basically comes down to Trust Us / Pay no Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain ...... but if you peel back the onion just a bit, you sometimes find collateral problems that can surpass the original issue being "solved".

Rgds, D.

 

[JPRambo]

Customer of mine came today to show me his new car. A Tesla Model 3 and took me for a ride and I was surprised. It did have an update recently. It can in some instances see the second car ahead of itself.

 

[vvanders]

Yup, they do that by bouncing the radar off the road underneath the car infront.