Self-driving cars--seriously?

[Carlos Alvarez]

The most enlightening thing in this thread is that there are people who genuinely believe their personal opinion is THE deciding factor in the matter.

No kidding. The evidence is easy to research. It's like the anti-gun arguments that all fall apart when you look at the technical aspects. That's why I try to keep opinion out of the posts and focus on the facts and what I've personally seen in the industry.

[Carlos Alvarez]

I doubt anyone is seriously suggesting that manually-driven vehicles will completely disappear.
But at some point it may become much more difficult to get a driver's license.

Both are probably true. It will be a very long time before nothing can be driven manually. Will it eventually happen? Dunno, would Henry Ford think we would "ever" have his invention drive itself at 100 MPH? Probably not.

The idea that non-self-driving car licenses would become harder to get has already been discussed. People will need better training to be the one in 50 cars that has a human driver. There have been a few papers written on it, and I think I can get permission to share one of them.

[Chase Mueller]

There were 5984 pedestrians killed in 2017 by drivers, and you believe a person behind the wheel is safer ?

Kinda playing devil's advocate here. While I completely see where you are coming from, it's not quite a viable argument. We don't have anywhere near an adequate sample size to say self-driving vehicles are safer. Give it several long years for the sample size to increase, then I would be very interested to see if they are in fact safer or not.

[Chase Mueller]

No kidding. The evidence is easy to research. It's like the anti-gun arguments that all fall apart when you look at the technical aspects. That's why I try to keep opinion out of the posts and focus on the facts and what I've personally seen in the industry.

That, good sir, is a solid approach. Wish more people had that mentality these days.

[Greg Peterson]

There was a time in the not to distant past when the thought of an unmanned elevator was frightening to the general public. How could elevators know what floor to go to and when to stop.

One day in the not to distant future, our descendants will remember us in a similar light.

[Pat Barry]

There was a time in the not to distant past when the thought of an unmanned elevator was frightening to the general public. How could elevators know what floor to go to and when to stop.

One day in the not to distant future, our descendants will remember us in a similar light.

Good thinking

[Doug Garson]

Do I think that sometime in our lifetime all cars will be self driving? Not likely, there are still people driving the predecessor of the automobile (horse with or without buggy and there are places where horses can go that cars can't). I can see a time when only self driving cars may be allowed in some congested city downtown areas eliminating the need for parking spaces and making traffic flow more efficient. On the other hand it's less likely there will be any self driving cars in some remote areas with sparse population. If you are concerned about how a self driving car can handle difficult driving situations many human drivers struggle with ordinary driving conditions and self driving cars don't drink, fall asleep, text, or suffer from road rage. The next generation of self driving cars will be substantially better than the current generation, the next generation of human drivers, not so much. They will be less dependent on driving skills and more dependent on technology (auto braking systems, blind side detectors, traction control, etc.)
I think the real issue will be liability issues when there are accidents (even though accidents will become less frequent). Who will be liable if a first generation self driving car has an accident that later generation cars have learned to avoid? Is it the car owner or the designer?

[Carlos Alvarez]

There was a time in the not to distant past when the thought of an unmanned elevator was frightening to the general public. How could elevators know what floor to go to and when to stop.

One day in the not to distant future, our descendants will remember us in a similar light.

As someone else pointed out, for a while cars were considered so dangerous they had to have flag men. And then there were the anti-car nuts that introduced a bill requiring the operator to DISASSEMBLE AND HIDE THE PARTS of the car if it came upon farm animals, until the animals were no longer in sight.

The most infamous of the Red Flag Laws was enacted in Pennsylvania circa 1896, when legislators unanimously passed a bill through both houses of the state legislature, which would require all motorists piloting their "horseless carriages", upon chance encounters with cattle or livestock to (1) immediately stop the vehicle, (2) "immediately and as rapidly as possible ... disassemble the automobile", and (3) "conceal the various components out of sight, behind nearby bushes" until equestrian or livestock is sufficiently pacified.

We as humans never learn from what our silly ancestors reacted to emotionally. Every generation has their couple of hyped-up fears. Every generation is also the last good one. Tomorrow will come, the next gen will be fine.

[Dave Zellers]

Every generation is also the last good one. Tomorrow will come, the next gen will be fine.

Too True.

Credit to: Thor the Elder, 8512BC.

[Bob Turkovich]

Per NHTSA, in 2016 there were 1.18 vehicle related deaths per 100 million vehicle miles (or 1 death per 84.7 million miles). For the record, there were 3.22 trillion miles accrued in the US that year.

We’ve now had one death in the past 365 days on a self-driving car (possibly 2 – the jury is still out on last week’s Tesla incident). I highly doubt there have been close to 84.7 million miles put on self-driving cars on public roads. The reliability/success of the current self-driving systems have not been adequately proven.

Yesterday, the head of Toyota NA admitted there will be hundreds, up to a thousand, of deaths while the public road testing continues (of which Toyota has temporarily suspended.) He still thinks that self-driving is the way of the future as it will eventually save lives. My concern is the rush to dive into high volume production.

I’ve been an automotive engineer for the past 45+ years (semi-retired the last 10). During that time, I had responsibility for multiple safety-related components and systems. I am fully aware of the methodology and rigors required to fully prove out the hardware as well as the interface with the electrical controlling systems of some of that hardware. I have a pretty good idea of what can happen if the control system tells the hardware the wrong thing to do.

What I don’t have is the experience of multiple electronic control systems talking to each other and that is what you have with self-driving cars.
In this case, you have four control systems that need to talk to each other and know what each other is doing – throttle, braking, steering and mapping. Each system has multiple suppliers – each with their own unique hardware designs and software requirements. (If you don’t think that’s important, please remember that some OEM’s had problems with launching electronic throttle control (ETC), some didn’t.) Taking that into account (e.g., I can think of at least 6 major ETC players) the total number of combinations that require validation is not trivial.

While I think that self-driving cars (as part of the vehicle fleet but not the whole fleet) will eventually happen, I think that the push to rush into high-volume production is irresponsible and the practice of ridiculing those of us who are advising prudence and caution is juvenile.

[Chase Mueller]

I think the real issue will be liability issues when there are accidents (even though accidents will become less frequent). Who will be liable if a first generation self driving car has an accident that later generation cars have learned to avoid? Is it the car owner or the designer?

I would imagine when the next generations of autonomous cars are out and about, there will be some modifications to insurance and added safety measures, possibly even some sort of sensor or front facing camera that would give police and insurance agents a way to determine what is at fault. Or who, cause I'm sure it will be several generations before the vehicles are completely self-driven with no way to switch to human controls. Although, I hope that never happens. There should always be a human option in case something goes wrong.

[Carlos Alvarez]

the jury is still out on last week’s Tesla incident

I'm not aware of any self-driving Teslas. They have some driver assist features and require you to actively have your hands on the wheel. It's just one of the many forms of intelligent cruise and assist. I don't follow Tesla closely though and last time I researched their system was over a year ago.

I'm not aware of anyone pushing high volume production any time soon.

[Chase Mueller]

Bob is probably referencing the autopilot feature. Hands on the wheel at all time, and if you doze off, the car will slow down safely and come to a stop.

I'd be much more concerned about what happens when these bad boys catch on fire. That's rough stuff there

[Carlos Alvarez]

I would imagine when the next generations of autonomous cars are out and about, there will be some modifications to insurance and added safety measures, possibly even some sort of sensor or front facing camera that would give police and insurance agents a way to determine what is at fault. Or who, cause I'm sure it will be several generations before the vehicles are completely self-driven with no way to switch to human controls. Although, I hope that never happens. There should always be a human option in case something goes wrong.

Liabilities are fluid and subject to legal changes. There's already a lot of discussion on the topic, and solutions in the works. The most logical model is basically no-fault, and insurance companies will fight out the details in the background. There will no longer be a reason for drivers to be tracked and assigned a risk factor.

It connects with some unintended consequences, and this is driving part of the anti-self-driving car hysteria. Ticket and insurance revenue will go down a LOT. Well tickets should be really gone. And no more DWI cash cow, which makes millions in profits for municipalities all over the country. Gone. We can't have this. Oh yeah, and driver's licenses are such a great way for government to track us...gone...

[Chase Mueller]

Liabilities are fluid and subject to legal changes. There's already a lot of discussion on the topic, and solutions in the works. The most logical model is basically no-fault, and insurance companies will fight out the details in the background. There will no longer be a reason for drivers to be tracked and assigned a risk factor.

It connects with some unintended consequences, and this is driving part of the anti-self-driving car hysteria. Ticket and insurance revenue will go down a LOT. Well tickets should be really gone. And no more DWI cash cow, which makes millions in profits for municipalities all over the country. Gone. We can't have this. Oh yeah, and driver's licenses are such a great way for government to track us...gone...

There's the tin hat!
In all seriousness the no-fault makes sense, insurance is gonna hate it I'm sure, probably see a spike in lawsuits against insurance companies not wanting to cover it. I wasn't aware there was already a model in talks.
I don't think DWI will get taken out of the equation, I think it'll get updated to include no operating if you're over the legal limit. Even though you won't really be operating.
But you're spot on about the gov probably not being too thrilled over this, never thought about how much cash flow could potentially be affected, government job loss from it, very intriguing stuff.