# Something occurred to me about Driverless Cars



## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

If an Uber vehicle had no driver, how can it be called a "ridesharing" vehicle, given that machines are not sharing anything with anyone ?


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## volksie (Apr 8, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> If an Uber vehicle had no driver, how can it be called a "ridesharing" vehicle, given that machines are not sharing anything with anyone ?


And if you started your biz as "UberCab" & you aspire to run "Driverless Cars", how can you claim you're not a transportation company?
How do you claim you gave your "Billionth Ride" as a tech company? If it's just an app service, why provide auto insurance at all?


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

I suspect that Uber will not be interested in owning the fleet of driverless cars. I think they rather like the idea of having someone else bear the burden of maintenance. You buy yourself a driverless car, you drive to work, and once you are there you send your car to drive for uber, then in the evening it comes to pick you up and take you home...

It's a nice fantasy - but currently driverless cars struggle with bad weather, get horribly confused by snow and I cannot imagine how they would easily deal with the pax never being at the pickup site or damaging the interior. 

I don't see Uber being able to leverage driverless cars anytime soon. Driverless trucks maybe - highway routes are easy, driverless busses that go down predefined well established routes, sure - cars with NO driver to take control if something goes wrong? Not anytime soon.


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## 5 Star Guy (Nov 7, 2015)

GM just partnered with Lyft. It will definitely happen, maybe not soon. Most accidents happen when drivers hit these cars. One got pulled over for driving too slow, the cop attempted to give it a ticket.


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## john djjjoe (Feb 20, 2015)

Uber doesn't want them to make money. The point of doing this now is that when the IPO happens the DCF model accounts for driverless cars in the future as opposed to relying entirely on manually driven vehicles.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

5 Star Guy said:


> GM just partnered with Lyft. It will definitely happen, maybe not soon. Most accidents happen when drivers hit these cars. One got pulled over for driving too slow, the cop attempted to give it a ticket.


These driverless cars are driving under 35mph and can't navigate a real turn in real life situations. A lot od the crashes are happening due to the fact that oddly enough.... people/ drivers can't predict these cars because they are programmed to follow laws to the T.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

I predict by 2018 or before the first user level driverless cars will be on the road. The technology is far more advanced than people assume. 

Questions like how they will deal with a variety of situations are often presented as unsolvable or difficult to solve when the answers are actually pretty easy. Damaging the interior? Cameras. You obligate the pax to report damage to a car that arrives and acknowledge in the app if there is no apparent damage. This could be simply a button push, car is damaged, send another. Car is then examined through the cameras, damage is noted, review recordings to see who did it, file a police report and charge them for the damage. In reality, vandalism is committed by very few people and they can be held legally accountable. It's not a real issue.

Excellent engineering would put the car right back on the road. Car goes to garage, fast swap of seat or dashboard or whatever, it's back on the road. Same with vomit or other fluids. Don't clean them, hot swap the interior, back on the road, clean the parts in a system designed for this purpose.


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## john djjjoe (Feb 20, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> These driverless cars are driving under 35mph and can't navigate a real turn in real life situations. A lot od the crashes are happening due to the fact that oddly enough.... people/ drivers can't predict these cars because they are programmed to follow laws to the T.


No it is because people are bad drivers. If you aren't driving to be safe in that situation you are a bad driver. Defensive driving is safe regardless of what they do.



RamzFanz said:


> I predict by 2018 or before the first user level driverless cars will be on the road. The technology is far more advanced than people assume.
> 
> Questions like how they will deal with a variety of situations are often presented as unsolvable or difficult to solve when the answers are actually pretty easy. Damaging the interior? Cameras. You obligate the pax to report damage to a car that arrives and acknowledge in the app there is no apparent damage. This could be simply a button push, car is damaged, send another. Car is then examined through the cameras, damage is noted, review recordings to see who did it, file a police report and charge them for the damage. In reality, vandalism is committed by very few people and they can be held legally accountable. It's not a real issue.
> 
> Excellent engineering would put the car right back on the road. Car goes to garage, fast swap of seat or dashboard or whatever, it's back on the road. Same with vomit or other fluids. Don't clean them, hot swap the interior, back on the road, clean the parts in a system designed for this purpose.


The more people who believe this, the higher the valuation will pop at the IPO.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> These driverless cars are driving under 35mph and can't navigate a real turn in real life situations. A lot od the crashes are happening due to the fact that oddly enough.... people/ drivers can't predict these cars because they are programmed to follow laws to the T.


I think what you mean is they are so careful and safe, they are not instinctively predictable to humans, who are not. They can certainly navigate a turn in real life situations, it's just more cautious than humans and this may be issue with risk taking and impatient drivers, as long as humans are allowed to drive.

By the way, these cars will easily operate safely at very high speeds, 100+ miles an hour, they just aren't yet. The companies are easing them in to negate unfounded public fears.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Slon said:


> cars with NO driver to take control if something goes wrong? Not anytime soon.


Exactly. There is a ton of hype from the companies who want driverless cars. They are simply desperate to not be left behind in the event someone figures a way to do it. But in reality, driverless car hype is just like the hype we saw around Google glasses. Where is that now? The military might be able to use it for sending in supplies to dangerous war zones, or evac wounded, but that's about it.

Some of the issues with driverless cars:
Speed kills: Who wants to be in a driverless car on the highway going 65 mpg?
Road rage: No computer can account for road rage, since it doesn't have rules.
Dumb drivers: Same as road rage, no rules. People just do dumb things.
Merging into traffic: There are no rules, sometimes people would rather crash into you than let you in.
Weather: Ice, snow, rain
Bad roads: Computers need perfection to follow the road lines, etc.
Hardware failures: GPS, breaks, complete system failures at highway speeds.
Caution: A human driver can pause at intersections to make sure no one missed the red light. A computer will fly on through on green.
Graffiti: Ever see what train cars look like after a few months in use?
Sabotage: People can attack the cars as they see them driving around.
Filth: Urine, puke, trash. The cars would have to return home 100% of the time after every trip to ensure cleaning.
Bad route: GPS sometimes sends a real driver down a dead-end street, alleyway, back door, road blocked by police action, road under construction, etc. A computer won't know how to deal with that.


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## john djjjoe (Feb 20, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Exactly. There is a ton of hype from the companies who want driverless cars. They are simply desperate to not be left behind in the even someone figures a way to do it. But in reality, driverless car hype is just like the hype we saw around Google glasses. Where is that now? The military might be able to use it for sending in supplies to war zone, or evac wounded, but that's about it.
> 
> Some of the issues with driverless cars:
> Speed kills: Who wants to be in a driverless car on the highway going 65 mpg?
> ...


Are you just making stuff up based on how a car you built would presumably act?


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

john djjjoe said:


> Are you just making stuff up based on how a car you built would presumably act?


No I work with computers. You have to understand they are not as smart as you think they are.


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## john djjjoe (Feb 20, 2015)

SafeT said:


> No I work with computers. You have to understand they are not as smart as you think they are.


If AI can't continue the car will slow and stop on the side of the road at which point a person can drive it remotely like a drone
In the rare instance where 2) fails Uber sends a real person in a car to pick up the stranded pax, paying full freight to a cab company if necessary. On net it is well worth the limited expense.

There are material problems in the way of widespread adoption of pure driverless cars.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Neural networks don't work for prediction the stock market. I have worked with multiple neural networks and they all fail to live up to the hype. The stock market should be very easy compared to all of the variables I mentioned with cars.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

john djjjoe said:


> No it is because people are bad drivers. If you aren't driving to be safe in that situation you are a bad driver. Defensive driving is safe regardless of what they do.
> 
> Repeat this more. The more people who believe this, the higher the valuation will pop at the IPO.





RamzFanz said:


> I think what you mean is they are so careful and safe, they are not instinctively predictable to humans, who are not. They can certainly navigate a turn in real life situations, it's just more cautious than humans and this may be issue with risk taking and impatient drivers, as long as humans are allowed to drive.
> 
> By the way, these cars will easily operate safely at very high speeds, 100+ miles an hour, they just aren't yet. The companies are easing them in to negate unfounded public fears.


What I'm saying isn't made up, its from a source that's on a team that makes these driverless cars. He works with them as his job the best part about it is he wouldn't dare put his own kid in it even on a closed course.


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## john djjjoe (Feb 20, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> What I'm saying isn't made up, its from a source that's on a team that makes these driverless cars. He works with them as his job the best park about it is he wouldn't dare put his own kid in it even on a closed course.


I agree they are extremely advanced and 95% of the way there however this is a situation where you will spend 80-90% of the total development time fixing the last 5% of issues because those 5% could screw the entire thing.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

90% is just getting the car build and a software to run it. the rest is all the weaking. 

I look at it this way... when I raced superbikes, traction control was this mythical creature like a Unicorn this was almost 15 years ago. 10 years in it was confirmed to exist but only those with $100's of thousands of dollars could purchase it and it really didn't work all that well. Today traction control on superbikes is cheap and affordable $1000 but that's not to say the system is perfect. it still needs to be adjusted based on everyday factors. even if adjusted proper the fail rate of these things is still pretry big. 

while cars have a base traction control system which is much more simple than one on a motorcycle. Think of this driverless car thing as TC on a moto. But since it's for the masses the development needs to damn near perfect before it can be rolled out to the public. That will take far more many years and money then I think companies are willing to spend. Even Google.


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

Driverless car is a technology hype to get investors excited and drivers confused. Here's why? How will the computer detect the lanes that vanishes when there's a snowstorm? rampant carjacking, drug trafficking at its finest, sexual fantasy being perform since no human driving the car, ETA 25 mins away and pax cancel then the car go crazy. Driverless Lyft/Uber will destroy our basic day to day human interaction as you know it.


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## john djjjoe (Feb 20, 2015)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Driverless car is a technology hype to get investors excited and drivers confused. Here's why? How will the computer detect the lanes that vanishes when there's a snowstorm? rampant carjacking, drug trafficking at its finest, sexual fantasy being perform since no human driving the car, ETA 25 mins away and pax cancel then the car go crazy. Driverless Lyft/Uber will destroy our basic day to day human interaction as you know it.


I think it decreases run rate costs for the business and increases value of the stock at IPO. That is all.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Exactly. There is a ton of hype from the companies who want driverless cars. They are simply desperate to not be left behind in the even someone figures a way to do it. But in reality, driverless car hype is just like the hype we saw around Google glasses. Where is that now? The military might be able to use it for sending in supplies to dangerous war zones, or evac wounded, but that's about it.
> 
> Some of the issues with driverless cars:
> Speed kills: Who wants to be in a driverless car on the highway going 65 mpg?
> ...


The hype around driverless cars is like the hype around trains, original cars, and commercial flying when they were ready to be introduced. There were many many people who would swear up and down they wouldn't work and invented very similar imaginary roadblocks.

Speed kills: Who wants to be in a driverless car on the highway going 65 mpg?

65?! I want to go 150 MPH, and one day, sooner rather than later, we will. I'll be napping in the back.

Road rage: No computer can account for road rage, since it doesn't have rules.

Well, first of all, this is a great example of why driverless cars will be better. No road rage.

Dumb drivers: Same as road rage, no rules. People just do dumb things.

driverless cars can react to changing and unexpected situations. No worries, they can, far far better than a human driver. The real answer in the end will be to eliminate human drivers. Until then, humans will provide the trial by fire making self driving even safer.

Merging into traffic: There are no rules, sometimes people would rather crash into you than let you in.

 There no possible way a human could judge all of the variables of a merge in a 360 view and adjust as fast as a self driving car. If a human can do it, a self driving car will do it far better. No human drivers would mean almost perfect merges at very high speeds within inches of each other.

Weather: Ice, snow, rain

...kill and injure a lot of human drivers who simply can't sense the affects like a SDC will. Not at all sure why you see these as barriers.

Hardware failures: GPS, breaks, complete system failures at highway speeds.

Redundancies. Back up systems, alternate tracking sources, mechanical systems. All considered long ago.

Caution: A human driver can pause at intersections to make sure no one missed the red light. A computer will fly on through on green.

2,000,000 miles of Google car driving and not a single accident not caused by humans. The most common cause? The human driver didn't predict and react to the Google car's cautious behavior, like not going through a green light when it isn't safe. A SDC can see in 360 degrees and judge the velocity of everything around it and react in milliseconds. A human can't. Not even close. I would bet my very last dime a human driver gets t-boned by the car coming through the red light 1,000 - 1 more than a SDC.

Graffiti: Ever see what train cars look like after a few months in use?

Train cars sit for long periods of time in an unprotected manner. SDC's will not. Once again, if a graffitied car pulled up, the pax reports it, the evidence of the crime is saved, the police are called. 

Sabotage: People can attack the cars as they see them driving around.

They could, but they won't. most people aren't criminals and most criminals don't want to go to prison. This is a hypothetical, a very improbable hypothetical, and one that can be insured against. Yes, yes, I've heard all about the gangs of masked Uber drivers that will attack the SDCs. I'm not buying it, people don't do that, and the ones who do, if anyone at all, will go to jail and stop doing it.

Filth: Urine, puke, trash. The cars would have to return home 100% of the time after every trip to ensure cleaning.

Nope. Next passenger reports the condition of the car, evidence is preserved, and the pax who did it pays for it. Trash? Have a trash can and charge any offender.

Bad route: GPS sometimes sends a real driver down a dead-end street, alleyway, back door, road blocked by police action, road under construction, etc. A computer won't know how to deal with that.

Of course they will know how to deal with it! SDCs are NOT slaves to GPS routing. They have an abundance of sensors and systems to deal with a bad GPS instruction. You know the difference? Once one cars figures out there's an issue, it can tell all other cars to avoid that issue, in seconds. Humans can't do that.


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

Will the driverless car obey pax command like we do? extra stops? drive thru to get food, quick stops at 7-11, liquor stores, can we squeeze 6 people in a 5 passenger car? I will give you direction. and so on. Nothing but Hype. My prediction is it will take a good 30 years before driverless cars are fully implemented in our daily lives.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

I would love to see what happens when a traffic signal at an intersection goes out and a cop is standing there trying to direct traffic and along comes a stupid non-human car. lol


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Will the driverless car obey pax command like we do? extra stops? drive thru to get food, quick stops at 7-11, liquor stores, can we squeeze 6 people in a 5 passenger car? I will give you direction. and so on. Nothing but Hype. My prediction is it will take a good 30 years before driverless cars are fully implemented on our daily lives.


Sure, why not? Extra stops won't bother a driverless car at all, why would they? Drive thru, sure, why not? I will give you directions? Sure, why not?

Nothing but hype? Why in the world would google have over 2,000,000 miles logged for nothing but hype?


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

john djjjoe said:


> If AI can't continue the car will slow and stop on the side of the road at which point a person can drive it remotely like a drone
> In the rare instance where 2) fails Uber sends a real person in a car to pick up the stranded pax, paying full freight to a cab company if necessary. On net it is well worth the limited expense.
> 
> There are material problems in the way of widespread adoption of pure driverless cars


Erm I used to work on digital navigation systems for half a decade including auto pilot functions - so I would say I "work with computers". Hurp durp.

We had THREE of every thing to avoid system failure. You cannot have just 1! You cannot have 2! You need 3....
Why three? Well you need at least two working at all times to know that the data you have is valid, and you need a 3rd as a backup so in case one fails you aren't stranded. This is a huge cost issue for a true self driving car.

Self driving cars can prove again and again how amazing they are in a controlled environment, how well they do in Mcity or some other test environment is irrelevant to

Just go ahead and search for "Tesla autopilot failure" vidoes.

People love the Google Car - which has never seen snow or rain and struggles with some intersections going into a super cautious mode that would infuriate a passenger as well as other drivers.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> I would love to see what happens when a traffic signal at an intersection goes out and a cop is standing there trying to direct traffic and along comes a stupid non-human car. lol


They would react to the situation and then warn every other self-driving car in milliseconds. What did you think they would do? "Stupid" self driving cars can sense and process information millions of times faster and better than a human.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Emmanuel12 said:


> can we squeeze 6 people in a 5 passenger car?


Why stop at 6.. go ahead and jam 10 or 12 people in there. Smoke a nasty cigar. Sex your mate. Post ads on the walls. Maybe the driverless car will electrocute you for not following the rules? lol


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> This is a huge cost issue for a true self driving car.


Quality electronics, processors, and sensors are cheap.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> They would react to the situation and then warn every other self-driving car in milliseconds. What did you think they would do? "Stupid" self driving cars can sense and process information millions of times faster and better than a human


would a car would be able to tell every possible hand motion and whistle blow any random traffic cop makes at an intersection at any time of day or night in any conditions light/dark/snow/rain? lol I didn't know cops followed any Google approved hand movement rules.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Why stop at 6.. go ahead and jam 10 or 12 people in there. Smoke a nasty cigar. Sex your mate. Post ads on the walls. Maybe the driverless car will electrocute you for not following the rules? lol


Next passenger evaluates the car and rejects it if it has issues. Video recording viewed, offending pax charged, police notified if need be, move on.


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

Looks like we have a driverless car advocace trying to convince us driverless car will put more money in our pocket lol


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> would a car would be able to tell every possible hand motion and whistle blow any random traffic cop makes at an intersection at any time of day or night in any conditions light/dark/snow/rain? lol I didn't know cops followed any Google approved hand movement rules.


 Are humans really that stupid they can't learn 2 or 3 standardised hand signals? You do realise they have standardised hand signals now?

Hey, you know what's beautiful? When humans are eliminated and SDC communications are standardised, we won't need traffic signals.

Also, no more traffic jams. Screaming speeds. And deaths all but eliminated.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> You do realise they have standardised hand signals now?


Is that why I see cops keep shooting unarmed people on CNN? The unnamed people didn't know the approved hand signs for don't shoot I am unarmed? Or did the cop not send the right hand signal to the person getting ready to be shot? lol


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> What I'm saying isn't made up, its from a source that's on a team that makes these driverless cars. He works with them as his job the best part about it is he wouldn't dare put his own kid in it even on a closed course.


Your statement about the issue with the cars being overly cautious is well known and publicised.

I once knew an aircraft mechanic who wouldn't fly, even for free. Instead, he drove between cities. He said he knew too much about the maintenance and was scared to fly because of it. Statistically, that just made him an idiot. The opinion of one person over the actual real world results is not meaningful.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Quality electronics, processors, and sensors are cheap.


I got out of the navigation industry about 3 years ago.

This isn't consumer grade cheap phone gps stuff.

These are life and death items. They're not cheap, a single GPS unit was 2k (when I say unit I really mean antenna and the actual screen-less unit that just spits out the position that we fed into our system). Yes I am well aware that you could get one for ~$40 from Mouser electronics. Those are great if you're building a drone or some crap.

As I've said in other posts - we do not yet have self driving trains in the US. Explain to me why that is the case if you think cars are easy to automate.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Is that why I see cops keep shooting unarmed people on CNN? The unnamed people didn't know the approved hand signs for don't shoot I am unarmed? Or did the cop not send the right hand signal to the person getting ready to be shot? lol


Well, that became irrelevant quickly.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Looks like we have a driverless car advocace trying to convince us driverless car will put more money in our pocket lol


No, you have people who understand driverless cars are inevitable and nearing full introduction.

I'm sure the horse and carriage drivers were pissed about the automobile too but that didn't stop them or make them less real.


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

I am patiently waiting for Google to start ride sharing provide its drivers with cars and gas and share the profit 50/50 and run both Lyft and Uber to the ground.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> I'm sure the horse and carriage drivers were pissed about the automobile too but that didn't stop them or make them less real.


Why won't you people tell me how your Google glasses are doing or your Segways? I keep getting nothing when I ask that. Do you still wear your Google glasses?


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## Dan Dixon (Jul 10, 2015)

john djjjoe said:


> No it is because people are bad drivers. If you aren't driving to be safe in that situation you are a bad driver. Defensive driving is safe regardless of what they do.
> 
> Repeat this more. The more people who believe this, the higher the valuation will pop at the IPO.


Investors who buy in to the IPO are going to get burned worse than an Irishman's junk on a nude beach.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> No, you have people who understand driverless cars are inevitable and nearing full introduction.
> 
> I'm sure the horse and carriage drivers were pissed about the automobile too but that didn't stop them or make them less real.


I totally agree that driverless cars are inevitable. I just don't think they're going to happen as soon as people expect.

The self driving car of tomorrow is starting to sound more and more like the flying cars that we were going to have any day now - 30 years ago.

What you need to understand is that the companies who are working on self driving cars have a vested interest in making their technology sound like it's a day away. It's absolutely crucial for them to create the image that their technology is just around the corner from being ready for an eager market.

Do you really think people would dump money into Tesla and Google if they said "Yeah we think we'll have this consumer grade autonomous car totally figured out and all the legal hurdles overcome in the next 20 to 30 years."

Speaking of Tesla - I'm still waiting for their $30k sedan since electronics are so cheap I don't see why they haven't made one...


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Slon said:


> Speaking of Tesla - I'm still waiting for their $30k sedan since electronics are so cheap


Has you watched the hands-free Tesla videos on Youtube? Funny stuff.


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

LMAO! have you figured that Google voice is barely use anymore. Siri hype is gone no one ever talk about Siri anymore. Do we really need to ask Siri to remind us to take a shower in the morning?


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

Some technology will never be good enough such as Driverless cars. I want complete control of the car. Airplane without a captain on board never will be good enough for our society period. No one will board an airplane without pilots in the cabin.


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## backstreets-trans (Aug 16, 2015)

New technology is ultra expensive when it first comes out. Driverless cars will cost at least double what the drivers make now. Huge losses will result from having to have a driver overseeing the driverless car.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Your statement about the issue with the cars being overly cautious is well known and publicised.
> 
> I once knew an aircraft mechanic who wouldn't fly, even for free. Instead, he drove between cities. He said he knew too much about the maintenance and was scared to fly because of it. Statistically, that just made him an idiot. The opinion of one person over the actual real world results is not meaningful.


I never mentioned about being overly cautious and WTF is that anyways? I stated that the cars seem to be unpredictable to human drivers. Unpredictable is just that and it's actually not known to the public all that much. majority of the reports that are out there will focus on the fact people run into the car, very little touch base on the human factor vs computer factors.

Planes fly everyday and have been for decades. you're telling me an engineer on this project who likely has more experience in driverles cars than 50% of those in the same field doesn't know what he's talking about? I wonder how many people died in the early stages of flight, let alone pilot less flying planes.

That's right planes still require a pilot and many people died in the beginning stages of flight.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> 90% is just getting the car build and a software to run it. the rest is all the weaking.
> 
> I look at it this way... when I raced superbikes, traction control was this mythical creature like a Unicorn this was almost 15 years ago. 10 years in it was confirmed to exist but only those with $100's of thousands of dollars could purchase it and it really didn't work all that well. Today traction control on superbikes is cheap and affordable $1000 but that's not to say the system is perfect. it still needs to be adjusted based on everyday factors. even if adjusted proper the fail rate of these things is still pretry big.
> 
> while cars have a base traction control system which is much more simple than one on a motorcycle. Think of this driverless car thing as TC on a moto. But since it's for the masses the development needs to damn near perfect before it can be rolled out to the public. That will take far more many years and money then I think companies are willing to spend. Even Google.


If only you had told Google, Apple, Tesla, GM, Ford, Mercedes, and all the others this in time!

Seriously, you are talking about small companies working on a niche market product. SDCs have some of the brightest most well funded teams in the world. They can do in weeks what some moto TC company may take a decade. Each year, the speed that new technologies become available becomes faster and faster and SDCs have been in R&D for a decade, a very long time in technology terms.

Half a century ago, NASA put a team like these together to get to the moon with the tiniest fraction of this technology. Self driving cars are not a technological leap like the moon landing. It's taking technology we already have and using it in a different way.


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## 5 Star Guy (Nov 7, 2015)

Google owns a stake in Super. This is going to get interesting when they are far ahead of Super.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

you really think companies like HONDA AND YAMAHA are small companies working in a niche market. 
you do realize the R&D from these companies race programs and others are why cars are so safe today right? Nm


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## Dan Dixon (Jul 10, 2015)

But what happens when you see this, in a turn, at 70 mph?









I am impressed by the self driving cars, and would love to see them become common, as long as I can still drive my own car if I want to. I still have my doubts about them, even with redundant systems there is always the chance of a total system failure.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> I never mentioned about being overly cautious and WTF is that anyways? I stated that the cars seem to be unpredictable to human drivers. Unpredictable is just that and it's actually not known to the public all that much. majority of the reports that are out there will focus on the fact people run into the car, very little touch base on the human factor vs computer factors.
> 
> Planes fly everyday and have been for decades. you're telling me an engineer on this project who likely has more experience in driverles cars than 50% of those in the same field doesn't know what he's talking about? I wonder how many people died in the early stages of flight, let alone pilot less flying planes.
> 
> That's right planes still require a pilot and many people died in the beginning stages of flight.


My point, and perhaps I misread yours, no insult intended, was they are so cautious, humans don't expect it and they hit the SDC.

"They're usually hit from behind in slow-speed crashes by inattentive or aggressive humans unaccustomed to machine motorists that always follow the rules and proceed with caution."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-into-driverless-cars-and-exposing-a-key-flaw

We aren't learning to fly. We aren't inventing new technology. We are taking known things like cars and adding well understood technologies like sensors and programming them to work together. It's not a technological leap in any way. We have drones that can fly and fight autonomously. We aren't inventing it, we are repurposing what we already know and we started a long time ago.

This isn't the beginning of creating self driving cars, it's the end. It's all but done. The testing so far is proving the cars are safer than humans. The reality is what it is, despite your friend's fear. The reality is what it is, despite my friend's fear.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Some technology will never be good enough such as Driverless cars. I want complete control of the car. Airplane without a captain on board never will be good enough for our society period. No one will board an airplane without pilots in the cabin.


Said the 9o year old man in the 1940s. I would board a plane in a heartbeat with no pilot once the technology is matured. But, like I know human drivers kill relentlessly, I also know human pilots are the cause of most airline crashes.


----------



## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Half a century ago, NASA put a team like these together to get to the moon with the tiniest fraction of this technology


A lot of dead astronauts along the way and then a dead manned space program in the end. Where is the shuttle fleet now? Oh, that's right. Decommission after the last shuttle blow-up.


----------



## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> We have drones that can fly and fight autonomously.


No we don't.

All currently in use "drones" have pilots.
There is a team of remote pilots for the drones and a local team at the landing site that takes control of the drone for landings and take offs.

We are working on drones that CAN do that. But we do not have them.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> What you need to understand is that the companies who are working on self driving cars have a vested interest in making their technology sound like it's a day away. It's absolutely crucial for them to create the image that their technology is just around the corner from being ready for an eager market.
> 
> Do you really think people would dump money into Tesla and Google if they said "Yeah we think we'll have this consumer grade autonomous car totally figured out and all the legal hurdles overcome in the next 20 to 30 years."


Actually, they have a vested interest in meeting or beating their predictions. How in the world would failure increase their value? The game is market share and market dominance, not pump and dump. Google is a real technology company, not an IPO. This entire discussion about "hype" is just not real world. It wouldn't serve them at all. It would harm them. They are Google. They are EXPECTED to deliver.


----------



## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

We have self parking vehicle and hardly anyone ever get excited about such feature anymore. I am a salesperson and as soon as I start talking about feature that will remove their control people start getting sleepy and yawning.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Said the 9o year old man in the 1940s. I would board a plane in a heartbeat with no pilot once the technology is matured. But, like I know human drivers kill relentlessly, I also know human pilots are the cause of most airline crashes.


 Air France 447 crashed due to an air speed sensor freezing...careful what you trust.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> A lot of dead astronauts along the way and then a dead manned space program in the end. Where is the shuttle fleet now? Oh, that's right. Decommission after the last shuttle blow-up.


You are off the deep end uninformed. If I recall, there were 3 dead astronauts in the moon landings and no, the shuttle wasn't decommissioned after the Columbia disaster, it was flown for another 8 years. Oh, and today, we have unmanned shuttles so...


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Actually, they have a vested interest in meeting or beating their predictions. How in the world would failure increase their value? The game is market share and market dominance, not pump and dump. Google is a real technology company, not an IPO. This entire discussion about "hype" is just not real world. It wouldn't serve them at all. It would harm them. They are Google. They are EXPECTED to deliver.


Bullshit. Google has a TON of failed projects under their belt. Tell me how is your Google Plus profile working out for you?


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Air France 447 crashed due to an air speed sensor freezing...careful what you trust.


So the pilots couldn't save it? Why not?


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> As I've said in other posts - we do not yet have self driving trains in the US. Explain to me why that is the case if you think cars are easy to automate.


But we do have self driving trains and they have been around in the world for a long time. Are you sure you worked in navigation?


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Bullshit. Google has a TON of failed projects under their belt. Tell me how is your Google Plus profile working out for you?


But Google plus works. Are you saying the technology doesn't work? Or are you saying misjudging the market means it doesn't work?


----------



## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> It's all but done. The testing so far is proving the cars are safer than humans.


The testing so far proves they may have a possible use in shuttling customers around a closed Disney theme park track at 30 mph max. Seriously, where do you get your talking points?


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Why won't you people tell me how your Google glasses are doing or your Segways? I keep getting nothing when I ask that. Do you still wear your Google glasses?


So you're saying they didn't work and are impossible like you are about SDCs?


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

Ask Mercedes how Car4two is working out for them?


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> But we do have self driving trains and they have been around in the world for a long time. Are you sure you worked in navigation?


Not in the US we don't. I was very specific with that.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> you really think companies like HONDA AND YAMAHA are small companies working in a niche market. GOD now I know you have not a clue what you're talking about.
> 
> you do realize the R&D from these companies race programs and others are why cars are so safe today right? Nm


Yes, I absolutely am. Honda and Yamaha developing a traction advancement for motocross riders is absolutely tiny compared to Google and Apple designing SDCs for the entire world. Correct. One has a team with a small comparative budget for a product few will buy compared to the teams, funding, and worldwide market for SDCs.


----------



## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> So the pilots couldn't save it? Why not?


Because when people or computers trust a faulty sensor bad things happen. The pilot induced a stall based on the sensor output.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Dan Dixon said:


> But what happens when you see this, in a turn, at 70 mph?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, there is a chance for total system failure. A very small chance if the redundancy is well engineered.


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## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

Even if self driving technology was mature enough for everyday use do you really think Uber, who has no idea how to run transportation in the first place, is going to be able to manage it's own fleet of driverless cars. First you'll need several thousand for each market and ten thousand in some. Who's going to do maintenance...or logistics...or operations management? Those kinds of things take employees and Uber doesn't have the knowledge or even motivation to do such a thing. Also people are opportunist. There's going to be vandalism, vomit, and all kinds of consistent issues with these cars and those so called swaps cost money in parts, downtime, and labor. Uber would bleed itself dry trying to maintain all of this. Who's going to be the schmuck stupid enough to be the new "independent contractor" to supply and take care of all of this...lol


----------



## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> They are Google. They are EXPECTED to deliver.


And I keep asking you where are your Google glasses? How are those doing?


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> No we don't.
> 
> All currently in use "drones" have pilots.
> There is a team of remote pilots for the drones and a local team at the landing site that takes control of the drone for landings and take offs.
> ...


We don't publicly acknowledge we have them. How long did we have stealth aircraft before the military acknowledged them?


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## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

Slon said:


> Because when people or computers trust a faulty sensor bad things happen. The pilot induced a stall based on the sensor output.


Probably because the pitot tubes froze and the static pressure got trapped causing it to act like an altimeter. Therefore the indicated airspeed showed as decreasing as the altitude decreased. So the pilot keeps pulling up because he thinks he's regaining airspeed and induces a stall. It's happened from time to time. Yet those types of planes have at least six pitot tubes for redundancy....interesting.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> The testing so far proves they may have a possible use in shuttling customers around a closed Disney theme park track at 30 mph max. Seriously, where do you get your talking points?


Are there cars and human drivers driving in Disney closed tracks? I had no idea.


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## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> We don't publicly acknowledge we have them. How long did we have stealth aircraft before the military acknowledged them?


We've had drones that fly from a computer operator inputting commands for years now. They don't sit behind a screen with a stick and rudder.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Ask Mercedes how Car4two is working out for them?


They would have no idea what I was talking about?


----------



## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

rtaatl said:


> They don't sit behind a screen with a stick and rudder.


Never seen or heard of it. They all use remote pilot operators. Post some links, otherwise that is non-sense.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

rtaatl said:


> We've had drones that fly from a computer operator inputting commands for years now. They don't sit behind a screen with a stick and rudder.


Yes, true, today people fly completely autonomous drones. I'm not sure why some think this is a futuristic idea.


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## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

Go


SafeT said:


> Never seen or heard of it. They all use remote pilot operators. Post some links, otherwise that is non-sense.


Google GlobalHawk...it's been around for years and although it can be manually overridden it doesn't fly primarily by a pilot.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> I predict by 2018 or before the first user level driverless cars will be on the road. The technology is far more advanced than people assume. I would love to read your source on weather incidents.
> 
> Questions like how they will deal with a variety of situations are often presented as unsolvable or difficult to solve when the answers are actually pretty easy. Damaging the interior? Cameras. You obligate the pax to report damage to a car that arrives and acknowledge in the app if there is no apparent damage. This could be simply a button push, car is damaged, send another. Car is then examined through the cameras, damage is noted, review recordings to see who did it, file a police report and charge them for the damage. In reality, vandalism is committed by very few people and they can be held legally accountable. It's not a real issue.
> 
> Excellent engineering would put the car right back on the road. Car goes to garage, fast swap of seat or dashboard or whatever, it's back on the road. Same with vomit or other fluids. Don't clean them, hot swap the interior, back on the road, clean the parts in a system designed for this purpose.


yes but 200,000 driverless cars and warehouses with technicians and every city where uber operates? I can't see uber bearing that headache, and I don't see how it's going to be cheaper.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> I'm not sure why some think this is a futuristic idea.


That is a toy, not USAF. But good try.


----------



## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

SafeT said:


> Why won't you people tell me how your Google glasses are doing or your Segways? I keep getting nothing when I ask that. Do you still wear your Google glasses?


the question that no one is asking is who was going to ride in DL cars? I sure as hell wouldn't. some people will, sure. A machine could cut my hair and a machine can pour me a drink but I'm never going to a robot barber or a robot bartender not now not ever and I need a driver in the damn car. end of argument.


----------



## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

It's funny reading some of these posts. AI, Autonomous drones, Driverless cars, etc.. Like it's judgement day and SkyNet has already taken over. All this fantasy stuff is straight out of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

rtaatl said:


> Go Google GlobalHawk...it's been around for years and although it can be manually overridden it doesn't fly primarily by a pilot.


As far as I am aware the GlobalHawk requires a launch and recovery element at the landing/take off site. It also is not a 'combat' craft.

I was explicitly responding to the claim that we have drones that require zero human control to fly and fight. This is not the case for the GlobalHawk or the Predator.


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## Emmanuel12 (Jan 6, 2016)

Why get stuck in traffic when you can flip a switch and fly away


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> yes but 200,000 driverless cars and warehouses with technicians and every city where uber operates? I can't see uber bearing that headache, and I don't see how it's going to be cheaper.


Uber will outsource all of that I'm pretty sure. Let local companies do it and just keep doing what they are doing.

----

Google isn't actually building a fleet for itself if I recall. They are building a platform that car companies can lease for their cars. Then other companies can buy and operate those cars in fleets.

If Google wins, it's going to mean self driving cars everywhere much quicker. If a manufacturer comes out first, it'll be a slower buildup I think.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Not in the US we don't. I was very specific with that.


So it's not possible because we don't have it in the US? Is that your point?

So, what are these?


 Airport Transit System at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois - VAL system.
 AirTrain at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California
 Detroit People Mover in Detroit, Michigan
 JTA Skyway in Jacksonville, Florida
 TPA Monorail at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida
 ExpressTram at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, Michigan
 AirTrain JFK in Jamaica, New York
 AeroTrain at Washington Dulles International Airport in Sterling, Virginia
 ATL Skytrain at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia
 The Plane Train at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia
 Metromover in Miami, Florida
 Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit in Morgantown, West Virginia
 Las Vegas Monorail in Las Vegas, Nevada
 Denver International Airport Automated Guideway Transit System at Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado
 Satellite Transit System at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac, Washington


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> And I keep asking you where are your Google glasses? How are those doing?


They worked. What's your point?


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> That is a toy, not USAF. But good try.


Are you saying the USAF can't do what teenage boys can?


----------



## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> So it's not possible because we don't have it in the US? Is that your point?
> 
> So, what are these?
> 
> ...


Seriously? Your comeback is airport trams? Wow.


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> Not most, all accidents so far.


Wait until they start trying to drive at 2 a.m. when the bars let out. If they will do exactly what they're supposed to do and follow all the rules road rules exactly it will just be a huge traffic jam. And I also predict that if there are a lot of them on the road people will go in front of them and slam on the brakes to try and make them hit them knowing that the parent company probably has very good insurance.


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Driverless car is a technology hype to get investors excited and drivers confused. Here's why? How will the computer detect the lanes that vanishes when there's a snowstorm? rampant carjacking, drug trafficking at its finest, sexual fantasy being perform since no human driving the car, ETA 25 mins away and pax cancel then the car go crazy. Driverless Lyft/Uber will destroy our basic day to day human interaction as you know it.


Since presumably they won't want to go against what is legal what's going to happen when there's a car accident on the freeway and the freeway ends up completely stopped and the police make everybody turn around and drive the wrong way down the freeway to get out? That's actually a pretty regular occurrence here in Houston. How's it going to be able to recognize who is a police officer and who isn't and do what they're told?


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

john djjjoe said:


> I agree they are extremely advanced and 95% of the way there however this is a situation where you will spend 80-90% of the total development time fixing the last 5% of issues because those 5% could screw the entire thing.


Exactly. Think of how much DNA we share in common with chimpanzees. Or bananas. It's the little differences that matter.


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Driverless car is a technology hype to get investors excited and drivers confused. Here's why? How will the computer detect the lanes that vanishes when there's a snowstorm? rampant carjacking, drug trafficking at its finest, sexual fantasy being perform since no human driving the car, ETA 25 mins away and pax cancel then the car go crazy. Driverless Lyft/Uber will destroy our basic day to day human interaction as you know it.


I want to see how well their voice recognition works when they have different people all the time and foreign drunk slurring there Woods.

That should be their words.

My phone is used to me. I think I just proved my point I had to type that last bit.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Emmanuel12 said:


> Will the driverless car obey pax command like we do? extra stops? drive thru to get food, quick stops at 7-11, liquor stores, can we squeeze 6 people in a 5 passenger car? I will give you direction. and so on. Nothing but Hype. My prediction is it will take a good 30 years before driverless cars are fully implemented in our daily lives.


Well that's the problem. Driverless cars will look very well as pets input the destination. And put it to Italy. Sit back and shut up. Get out when they're supposed to. The problem is that humans are not very good at that when they're drunk at 2 o'clock on a Saturday night. Humans unfortunately are the fly in the ointment. Dealing with humans will be the biggest obstacle to getting driverless cars to work for anyone who is not sober and has a brain.

For instance. A pax keeps giving you an address. You go there and they tell you that is not the right place. They are drunk and don't know what they're doing. You have to sit there and talk to them for 5 minutes and figure out where they are actually going. I don't imagine driverless cars will handle this very well in the next few years.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Seriously? Your comeback is airport trams? Wow.


Dude, come on. Self driving trains were possible technological generations ago. Today, unions and politicians willing, which they aren't, every train on the track could be automated and far safer than what we have.

The fact that they aren't is not a from a technological barrier. It's a human barrier.


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Slon said:


> I got out of the navigation industry about 3 years ago.
> 
> This isn't consumer grade cheap phone gps stuff.
> 
> ...


Good point.


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> Your statement about the issue with the cars being overly cautious is well known and publicised.
> 
> I once knew an aircraft mechanic who wouldn't fly, even for free. Instead, he drove between cities. He said he knew too much about the maintenance and was scared to fly because of it. Statistically, that just made him an idiot. The opinion of one person over the actual real world results is not meaningful.


But that just proves my point about humans being the fly in the ointment. There's going to be a large number of people who simply will not want to get in driverless cars no matter how safe they are. They simply won't trust the technology. All it will take is one nasty wreck which no matter how good they are is inevitable and people won't want to get in them. Yes eventually they will trust them but I don't think it will happen anytime soon.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> the question that no one is asking is who was going to ride in DL cars? I sure as hell wouldn't. some people will, sure. A machine could cut my hair and a machine can pour me a drink but I'm never going to a robot barber or a robot bartender not now not ever and I need a driver in the damn car. end of argument.


Young people with open minds who actually grasp the technology and older people, like me, who actually grasp the technology. I hear older people say they would never get in a car with a stranger, referring to Uber, because they made up their mind before even learning what Uber was.

_Dag nabbit, I'll never get in them thar flying contraptions!
_
The market for self driving cars is everyone today who would rather stay alive, get there faster, and enjoy their time in a car rather than drive themselves. It's huge. Sure it will start slow. Then the results and experiences will grow it fast, and then human driving will slowly be legislated out of existence.

My daughter who is 14, and smart as a whip, turned to me tonight going to the store and said, _you know, I'm probably part of the last generation that will drive themselves. In two years I will be getting my license while self driving cars are taking to the road. _


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Wait until they start trying to drive at 2 a.m. when the bars let out. If they will do exactly what they're supposed to do and follow all the rules road rules exactly it will just be a huge traffic jam. And I also predict that if there are a lot of them on the road people will go in front of them and slam on the brakes to try and make them hit them knowing that the parent company probably has very good insurance.


Yes, because so many people are prone to trading injury for insurance. It's rampant. Oh, and loaded with cameras showing who was at fault, there is that. But hey, let's just fabricate a whole new world without laws and protections where insurance will just pay out with no challenge.

They won't cause traffic jams because they won't pick up illegally like cabs and Ubers. Want a car? Go here where it's legal.


----------



## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> Uber will outsource all of that I'm pretty sure. Let local companies do it and just keep doing what they are doing.
> 
> ----
> 
> ...


Guess I should save my money and buy a Hellcat Charger to save for judgement day when autonomous vehicles take over...lol


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Since presumably they won't want to go against what is legal what's going to happen when there's a car accident on the freeway and the freeway ends up completely stopped and the police make everybody turn around and drive the wrong way down the freeway to get out? That's actually a pretty regular occurrence here in Houston. How's it going to be able to recognize who is a police officer and who isn't and do what they're told?


First of all, I have been driving for 35 years and have encountered this twice. There are so many ways this could be solved, I have no idea why people present these as roadblocks or something that hasn't been considered in over a decade of R&D. Push button. _Yes, how can I help you? _Hey, the road is blocked and the traffic needs to turn around to the last exit. _No problem, instructions have been sent to the car, is there anything I can help you with?_


----------



## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Dude, come on. Self driving trains were possible technological generations ago. Today, unions and politicians willing, which they aren't, every train on the track could be automated and far safer than what we have.
> 
> The fact that they aren't is not a from a technological barrier. It's a human barrier.


You're 100% right for the first time in this thread - but for some reason you think this exact same issue won't exist for cars. Odd.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> I want to see how well their voice recognition works when they have different people all the time and foreign drunk slurring there Woods.
> 
> That should be their words.
> 
> My phone is used to me. I think I just proved my point I had to type that last bit.


Voice recognition is one way to communicate out of many. Redundancy. The last being a live person who decides to deliver the pax to his home address, the police, the hospital, whatever. There are answers and people will have to understand and agree to limitations.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> You're 100% right for the first time in this thread - but for some reason you think this exact same issue won't exist for cars. Odd.


No one cares about trains. People care a lot about cars and their safety and they aren't controlled by unions. When self driving cars come out, people will test them, then they will flock to them.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Well that's the problem. Driverless cars will look very well as pets input the destination. And put it to Italy. Sit back and shut up. Get out when they're supposed to. The problem is that humans are not very good at that when they're drunk at 2 o'clock on a Saturday night. Humans unfortunately are the fly in the ointment. Dealing with humans will be the biggest obstacle to getting driverless cars to work for anyone who is not sober and has a brain.
> 
> For instance. A pax keeps giving you an address. You go there and they tell you that is not the right place. They are drunk and don't know what they're doing. You have to sit there and talk to them for 5 minutes and figure out where they are actually going. I don't imagine driverless cars will handle this very well in the next few years.


Why do people think driverless cars are responsible for people, their choices, and their behavior? They aren't. People are responsible for themselves and other people. It's like saying Uber drivers are responsible for surge prices. Yes, driverless cars will have to have some communication and fall back options, but in the end, if you're a drunk idiot, you're a drunk idiot.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> But that just proves my point about humans being the fly in the ointment. There's going to be a large number of people who simply will not want to get in driverless cars no matter how safe they are. They simply won't trust the technology. All it will take is one nasty wreck which no matter how good they are is inevitable and people won't want to get in them. Yes eventually they will trust them but I don't think it will happen anytime soon.


Humans love convenience and safety. They will flock to self driving cars.

Your argument has been made and disproved at every turn. You didn't notice that I called my friend an idiot. My friend was scared of flying, I was scared that an idiot like him worked on planes. Many, like the people on this thread who think it's a pipe dream, will argue against it and resist it, and they will be the exception. Happens every time.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

You know it's funny with these discussions, the sand throwers have great imaginations about how something that already works will never work, and they never ever discuss the positives, as if there are none. Where are those lists?


----------



## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> So the pilots couldn't save it? Why not?


Because they weren't used to flying without automation and trusted what the computer was telling them until it was too late.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Fuzzyelvis said:


> Because they weren't used to flying without automation and trusted what the computer was telling them until it was too late.


No, because they made really bad decisions that a computer, with redundant data, wouldn't be confused by.

It's funny that people blame really bad pilot decisions on computers that could have reacted correctly in milliseconds. So many planes have gone down because pilots are nowhere near as capable of seeing what's going on and reacting to it. The era of pilots is only continuing because planes have such a long lifespan and human ignorance.

You know, new military jets today are all flown by computers? All the pilot controls are where he wants to go and at what attitude and speed, the plane actually makes it all happen. Pilots could never keep a stealthy plane in the air manually. All modern pilots do is basically tell the jet where they want it to go, the jet makes it happen.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Seriously? Your comeback is airport trams? Wow.


My comeback was "So it's not possible because we don't have it in the US? Is that your point?" which I have made several times and you ignore.


----------



## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Air France 447 crashed due to an air speed sensor freezing...careful what you trust.


What's amazing about your statement is that a human, who should have known full well they were making the wrong decision, killed all those people. A computer would have never made those fear driven decisions. A frozen tube or malfunctioning sensor is obvious when there is redundancy. Even without it, the co-pilot made a decision that was counter to everything in which he was trained.

You also need to understand that the plane you are talking about is 22 years old. Back when there were a total of 10,000 websites and 2M computers even connected to the internet (mine being one). This is when the first ever 100% internet transaction occurred, a pizza order. A home computer had about 4MB ram. Not GB, MB.

Claiming it was the automation's fault is nonsense. The ancient automation turned the decisions over to the pilot and everyone died.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

I hear someone at Google watched star trek the other day. Press release coming... Google to build first warp drive by 2025. Because we all know... anything you see in a scifi flick, google can build. lol


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> A frozen tube or malfunctioning sensor is obvious when there is redundancy.


The prob with redundancy is that the redunancy usually is the first thing to fail. But you won't know until you need it. But lets say you have 10 redundancies. How many do you need to vote a certain way before you trust it. How about 6 say everything is good, but 4 says everything is screwed. Which one do you trust. The 6 or the 4?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> I hear someone at Google watched star trek the other day. Press release coming... Google to build first warp drive by 2025. Because we all know... anything you see in a scifi flick, google can build. lol


I am confused, you have made a dozen completely false claims about technology which I have pointed out with no reply from you, and you still want to make accusations? You have no idea what you are talking about. Absolutely none. When you think you do, you are at your worst.

Look, enjoy a video of a rocket engine landing itself after going to space, it might help bring you up to speed:






Do you have any conception of how difficult that is compared to self driving cars? Going to space, launching your payload with secondary engines, and returning to earth to land upright on a landing pad?

This was accomplished by a private company. Not NASA with government funding. And you think we can't make self driving cars?!?!


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## rtaatl (Jul 3, 2014)

That's not a true statement regarding altimeter errors. A pitot tube is strictly mechanical. How a pilot interprets the misinformation has nothing to do with a computer. As for fighter jets they are very unstable and yes a computer fly by wire translates input to keep the plane steady, but nevertheless it's still pilot input to aviate and navigate.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> The prob with redundancy is that the redunancy usually is the first thing to fail. But you won't know until you need it. But lets say you have 10 redundancies. How many do you need to vote a certain way before you trust it. How about 6 say everything is good, but 4 says everything is screwed. Which one do you trust. The 6 or the 4?


Uhhhh, sorry dude, you are talking about chickens and goats. That's not how redundancy works in the modern world.

In the modern world all systems are active all the time and they are compared to each other in milliseconds. This is how they decide to move to the redundant system. The redundant system may just be tasked to get you out of harm's way. Separate power source, separate processing, separate sensors, separate communications. These could all be unsimilar to overcome a variable not understood.

EXAMPLE: My car is sliding from ice. No human would even be aware of this at this point. The system glitches from power failure at the same time. Very unlikely. The human is just now comprehending they are sliding. The redundant system, with it's own power source, sees the primary system isn't reacting, it takes over and reacts. It reacts in a manner humans are incapable of. No human can control guidance and traction like a computer.

The F22 is flown by a computer in a way no human could. A human would just fall out of the sky. Humans tell it where to go, the automation makes it happen.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Uhhhh, sorry dude, you are talking about chickens and goats. That's not how redundancy works in the modern world.


Yiur conprehension of technology is rather child-like.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT You're the reason we can't have nice things on this forum.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Yiur conprehension of technology is rather child-like.


I documented your brilliant reply on reddit:


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3ztf62


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## uberwerx (Dec 7, 2015)

The reason I don't believe driverless cars will work *until all cars are driverless* is because of the same reason we don't have flying cars. When we all have to use driverless cars, including truck drivers, then I think the flying car part will also be possible. But don't listen to me listen to the Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/driverless-cars-arent-likely-to-take-over-america-anytime-soon-2015-4
or the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/t...erless-cars-fault-its-other-drivers.html?_r=0
or http://theweek.com/articles/567715/frightening-truth-about-future-driverless-cars or an ex-apple-exec http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/02/15/the-fantastic-apple-car/


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> No, because they made really bad decisions that a computer, with redundant data, wouldn't be confused by.
> 
> It's funny that people blame really bad pilot decisions on computers that could have reacted correctly in milliseconds. So many planes have gone down because pilots are nowhere near as capable of seeing what's going on and reacting to it. The era of pilots is only continuing because planes have such a long lifespan and human ignorance.
> 
> *You know, new military jets today are all flown by computers?* All the pilot controls are where he wants to go and at what attitude and speed, the plane actually makes it all happen. Pilots could never keep a stealthy plane in the air manually. All modern pilots do is basically tell the jet where they want it to go, the jet makes it happen.


Are you for real? Whats your aviation background are you a pilot? If the answer is no I suggest you stop and just STFU already.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> Are you for real? Whats your aviation background are you a pilot? If the answer is no I suggest you stop and just STFU already.


My background is automation systems design and programming. It's also lifelong aviation and science buff. I've followed military jet development from back when the F-117 and B2 were just rumors in science magazines and the internet was individual bulletin boards you had to log onto directly. And yes, I did study to be a pilot, I have fighter, helicopter, and commercial jet pilots in my family, as well as high ranking anti-satellite military intelligence.

Stealth aircraft are unflyable by humans. The pilot inputs a command through an interface like a joystick or yoke and the result is 100% handled by the system. He has no direct control of the craft.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Stealth aircraft are unflyable by humans. The pilot inputs a command through an interface like a joystick or yoke and the result is 100% handled by the system. He has no direct control of the craft.


Oh dude. I got news for you. We got self driving cars already then! The driver inputs a command through an interface like a steering wheel or pedals and the result is 100% handled by the system. He has no direct control of the car.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Oh dude. I got news for you. We got self driving cars already then! The driver inputs a command through an interface like a steering wheel or pedals and the result is 100% handled by the system. He has no direct control of the car.


I never said the jets were self flying. They easily could be though.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> My background is automation systems design and programming. It's also lifelong aviation and science buff. I've followed military jet development from back when the F-117 and B2 were just rumors in science magazines and the internet was individual bulletin boards you had to log onto directly. And yes, I did study to be a pilot, I have fighter, helicopter, and commercial jet pilots in my family, as well as high ranking anti-satellite military intelligence.
> 
> Stealth aircraft are unflyable by humans. The pilot inputs a command through an interface like a joystick or yoke and the result is 100% handled by the system. He has no direct control of the craft.


let me point out the answer to my question.... your answer should have been NO.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> let me point out the answer to my question.... your answer should have been NO.


It was a pointless question so I punted.


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## SibeRescueBrian (May 10, 2015)

Just thought I'd lighten the mood a bit since it seems to be getting a little tense in here.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

Sooner or later Lyber (Lyft and Uber) will likely introduce driverless cars into their rider's options. BUT equally likely, IMHO, is that they will also keep the existing options, i.e., cars with drivers. For two reasons. They know that some consumers will prefer, for one or more of various reasons, to be driven by a human driver. Also, drivers like us who are willing to use our own cars to work for net income after expenses (before taxes) of $12 to $20 per hour (about $16 to $26 in net fares from Lyber) may actually present a competitive option, costs wise, to the driverless option for riders. In other words, it may very well be cheaper for Lyber to offer and for riders to ping for an X or Lyft vs pinging for the new, driverless (robotic, or robot-driven) competing options, RX or RLyft. For Lyber, there are increased costs associated with driverless cars (RX, say) vs the existing costs of the current X. The question is, in totality, which mode, X or RX (Lyft or RLyft) will incur higher cost for Lyber. The interesting thing is, no matter which model incurs higher costs for Lyber, they will likely keep both options for consumers to choose from, because there are rider demands for both types of options (driverless or with drivers) no matter which is higher-priced than the other. This is largely about consumer choice. Think about the cab business. Two to four years with Lyber in a town, traditional cabs are still keeping half of their business, and this is with all possible odds stacked against them (cabs). With X vs. RX, the with-driver options may actually turn out to be the lower-cost options.


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## priusguy (Nov 23, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> If an Uber vehicle had no driver, how can it be called a "ridesharing" vehicle, given that machines are not sharing anything with anyone ?


i dont think anybody will buy driverless car for a lont time and if uber buy fleet then uber will be consider as a transportation company


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

Another reason for vehicle operating costs potentially being lower for owner-operator vehicles than driverless cars (whether Lyber own them or via leased fleet) is the simple fact that car owners generally take better care and keep costs down more than others. Case in point, the normal daily or weekly rental cars have much higher maint and repair costs per mile than owners' cars' for comparable model/year/mileage.


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## Dar-K (Dec 18, 2015)

Interesting topic here... But, here is what I find the most interesting. Why would Uber & Lyft be so interested in driver-less cars?
1) They've had to either own & maintain the cars or have a 3rd party do it. If the 3rd party did it, they would have much more of a strong-hold against Uber/Lyft if things were not going in their favor to remain profitable. Uber thrives on being in control, IMO... Once they lose that control, they'll spiral.

2) Driver-less cars, while awesome in theory, probably take a "LOT" of R&D to ensure that they're going to function 100% (100% Up-Time, 100% Safe, etc.) - There are testing in standard environments, while they need to get it out in more extreme environments. Put them up in Denver, Detroit, New York where weather, traffic, and people are more extreme. While technology is great & all, the cars would have to be loaded with sensors, separate computers, and such to ensure all regulations were met. How expensive will that all be? I can also envision scenarios where issues may be at hand (i.e., what if you were in a wooded area on a road and driving at night and a deer ran across the road out of no-where, or in a smaller neighborhood & a kid ran in front of the car).

3) Leaving the best for last. If Uber/Lyft were to absorb this fleet of driverless cars, that would mean the cars would be extremely high in production. Anything mass produced, usually is a little on the cheaper side, right? What is stopping the regular average Joe from making this purchase?? Now average Joe has a car that does the driving for him, leading to no need for a ride request. I use my Ubers to get to & from a bar. If my car is driver-less, why not just use my own car? (This would exclude Uber/Lyft's services).
If rates were 1.5-2.0 times that of a regular new car and maybe too expsensive for the average family, maybe a 2-driver household can get by w/ ease with 1 car. I.e., wife drives to work, SDC arrives back home, husband takes SDC to work. SDC stays at husbands work, wife finishes work SDC goes to wife's work & heads home. SDC than goes to Husbands work to pick him up & bring him home. This could lead to saving(s) on gas, insurance, wear & tear, etc.
Gas-demand takes a hit
Insurance companies take a hit (less are insuring)
Car repair/auto services takes a hit (less repairs needed)
Pro's land on the side of the consumer, but not for those who are in the market for the areas that would involve car related services.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

TNCs' competitive advantage mostly lies in the technology (the others are mainly the interrelated "beachhead effect" and the "network effect", which BTW may not be as strong as some had thought). Their programmers created a new (intermediate) product* which they used, with legions of willing PC drivers (with their range of brand-new to beat up cars), to provide the final product (rides) to the consumers (riders). What their programmers did was new, hence new technology. The new technology has been used successfully in disrupting the traditional cab market, hence disruptive technology (not all new technology turn out to be disruptive). In the traditional cab market, it was ready for the new disruptive technology to connect drivers (with spare time and car usage) with users who long for newer ride, more relatable drivers, faster PU (street hail of cabs isn't available everywhere), in the process also breaking up or weakening the legacy medallion market advantage. In the old market that the TNCs are disrupting, all variables were and are essentially static except the new technology they created. But SDCs are new. Suddenly we have a very different, brand-new variable in the market. It's like for years Walmart kept entering small town America, resulting in both mom and pop and big box retailers going under. Then suddenly, Amazon. 

*Technically "products" can either be either goods or services. In this post, the product is a service.

An average FT TNC PC driver probably does 10-20 trips a day, long and short ones mixed in. Let's say that's near the maximum efficient, environmentally-friendly usage of a vehicle. To reap that benefits of efficient, maximum use of our vehicles, it is very difficult for drivers to arrange by ourselves and be available to drive those 10-20 trips every day, so we rely on TNCs to "arrange" (matching us with riders) the trips in real time whenever we feel like driving. But with the newest technology, SDCs, it is much easier (still not easy, but much easier than before) for a group of related riders to make use of an SDC for multiple uses per day. With the SDCs, it is also much easier for new market entrants to compete against Lyber. For example, insurance companies and hedge funds who will likely own and lease out SDCs may find it also profitable to run a division of TNC themselves on top of their leasing division. With this newest technology, the question has become, will the disruptor, become the disruptee?


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## Wil_Iam_Fuber'd (Aug 17, 2015)

So if computers take over running transportation assets so what? We all go do something else. Industries become obsolete. GUber takes over Taxi and those dudes go do something else. Robots take over Guber and those dudes then have to go do something else. The real questions about "driverless" cars are these:
1) What use will the world then have for all of these unemployed humans?
2) How will the robots react to the realization that there are so many unnecessary humans on the planet?
3) What happens when the Robots learn to build themselves. Will they perhaps discover that humans have become obsolete?
Have a nice day.


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## Dar-K (Dec 18, 2015)

... Owning a SDC wouldn't be so bad, if it were low-maintenance, comfortable ride, great gas mileage, etc. -- I'd probably drive them longer distances to places I normally wouldn't care to & just sleep in the car.


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## wethepeople (Oct 10, 2015)

I say it again :

There will be no driverless cars in the future! especially not in the future nearby.

Why ?? The human brain and the decisionmaking of a pilot a train or truckdriver can not be made by a computer no matter what!
Planes can take of, fly and even land with an autopilot, but it's the guy in the cockpit that makes the final decision and eventually every day hundreds and thousands of human lives are saved because theres a pilot in every jetliner.

Computers can only "assist" us but will never be able to replace us. 
I consider our jobs as safe but underpaid of course.

Maybe there will be driverless cars when humans are no longer allowed to drive a car.
when it's only driverless cars, then human stupidity or road rage will no longer occur and only then the driverless idea may in fact work.
The technology is available and currently it's still being worked on it will be perfect one day, Yes i believe in that, but no judge would risk the case someone getting killed thru a stupid human driver ignoring a driverless car with passengers on board.


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## Uber-licious (May 22, 2015)

Id like to see what happens when a pax pukes in a driver less car. Will it also be self cleaning like an oven? That next pax is in for a nice little surprise.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

Uber-licious said:


> Id like to see what happens when a pax pukes in a driver less car. Will it also be self cleaning like an oven? That next pax is in for a nice little surprise.


To protect their assets and to improve on riders' experience, they are likely going to install multiple cameras, motion sensors, smell detectors, seat and floor wetness sensors and other monitoring gadgets whose realtime feeds are monitored by AI (which will be much cheaper than being watched by human eyeballs). Puking involves a number of signs, such as sudden and unusual movement, jerking, unusual sound, smell, wetness on seats or floor, etc., which may be picked by different devices, the data feeds of which will combine to trigger ("Estimated likelihood of puking in progress: 92%") a "Recalled to base station for confirmation and haz-mat cleanup". With these I doubt that pax will walk into a puke-contaminated SDC).


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## Roadrage Ranger (Nov 7, 2015)

The real gorilla in the room is litigation. The most common nightmare being kicked around lately is:
What if a self-driving car encounters a school bus loaded with kids, and the bus suddenly pulled out in front of it? Does it swerve off the side of the road and down a cliff, killing its own passengers? Does it crash into the bus?

If your answer is kill the auto-car passengers and save the kids, then who would want to ride in a computerized vehicle potentially programmed to kill them? If your answer was to crash into the busload of kids, then rest assured there's a long line of trial lawyers out there on your side.
You can't win.


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## sidewazzz (Jun 30, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> It was a pointless question so I punted.


Pointless??? You speak as if you saying fact as a professional of that field but you're only making stuff up. You claim that pilots don't fly planes and that the computers do, the only thing the pilot does it use a control stick lol. WTF is that??? As someone else already pointed out, that's like claiming people don't drive cars, the computer does because the only thing a driver does is use a wheel. You claim driver-less cars are here in 2018 and the only thing people are saying is that's WAAAAAYYYYYY too soon. You go as far as claiming the cars will operate safely at 100mph which is nothing but BS you made up. You ask for my source about what I said and it's directly from a friend that works on this project daily, but you dismiss it like he doesn't have a clue. At this point driverless cars only work in controlled environments and wont be a common thing for 10-20 years

My final though.... you like to speak as if fact but it's everything but that.


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## Trebor (Apr 22, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Exactly. There is a ton of hype from the companies who want driverless cars. They are simply desperate to not be left behind in the event someone figures a way to do it. But in reality, driverless car hype is just like the hype we saw around Google glasses. Where is that now? The military might be able to use it for sending in supplies to dangerous war zones, or evac wounded, but that's about it.
> 
> Some of the issues with driverless cars:
> Speed kills: Who wants to be in a driverless car on the highway going 65 mpg?
> ...


What all of yall are missing, is that until all cars are driverless, every driverless car, still requires a operator that can take over. It's going to be a sweet gig, to be a operator of a driverless car for at least 20 years. Sure, you probably have to focus when there is a passenger, but after that passenger gets out, you can sleep, play on your phone, etc.

As soon as Uber allows a "driverless" car to be used, I am buying one. You can easily get your 8 hours of sleep in and working for 24 hours at a time.

Why do I say at least 20 years? Because the majority of today's cars that are younger than 20 years, work fine. Most people are not going to be able to afford, or want to purchase a new car if they don't have to. (i.e. it still works)

The only way it will be less than 20 years, is if the government hands out vouchers for cars like they did with HDTV converters, which is a very slim chance.

Not to mention the post I quoted does have some really valid points, and most of these can only be solved by having all cars communicate with another. Road lines wouldn't matter if cars can communicate so that they know they have x amount of space between them on all 4 sides.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

sidewazzz said:


> Pointless??? You speak as if you saying fact as a professional of that field but you're only making stuff up. You claim that pilots don't fly planes and that the computers do, the only thing the pilot does it use a control stick lol. WTF is that??? As someone else already pointed out, that's like claiming people don't drive cars, the computer does because the only thing a driver does is use a wheel. You claim driver-less cars are here in 2018 and the only thing people are saying is that's WAAAAAYYYYYY too soon. You go as far as claiming the cars will operate safely at 100mph which is nothing but BS you made up. You ask for my source about what I said and it's directly from a friend that works on this project daily, but you dismiss it like he doesn't have a clue. At this point driverless cars only work in controlled environments and wont be a common thing for 10-20 years
> 
> My final though.... you like to speak as if fact but it's everything but that.


You don't need to be a professional in a field to understand the workings of a technology. My father never once worked as an auto mechanic but could strip a car down to its smallest part and put it back together.

STEALTH fighters and bombers are _unflyable_ by humans. If you did not have a highly advanced computerised system on board, it would fall from the sky, _no matter the skill of the pilot_. This is why, even though they (flying wings and early stealth) were conceived decades earlier, they couldn't be built because we were waiting for technology to catch up with design.

In a normal plane when you push a pedal on the floor, whether by cable or fly by wire, the plane adjusts the ailerons to _match your actions_. Even if it's fly by wire, the plane is being controlled by the pilot. Right push, ailerons adjust to match your input. Turn the yoke, rudder adjusts as much as you indicated it should.

In a stealth plane, you make an input, pushing the pedal because you want to roll right, and the system uses _all of the control surfaces_, not just the ailerons, making hundreds of adjustments a second, to do as you ask. A PILOT can't do a roll in a stealth aircraft, we are incapable of making the decisions and controlling the flight surfaces fast enough, we can only indicate to the system we want a roll. The plane is doing the flying.

It's like a nascar driver flying across the salt flats at 200 MPH and doing stunts with a child in the passenger seat telling him what he wants the car to do. Turn left, turn right, slide, now do donuts. The child is directing the driver, but he could never control the car and make it do what the driver is doing. He is physically and mentally incapable. Just like a human pilot in a modern stealth aircraft. This has been true since the 1960s.

The concept of self driving cars was introduced in the 1930s. The first ones were being tested in the 50s. In the 90's a self driving car drove from Munich to Odense, Denmark, 95% autonomously at speeds up to 118MPH (_so, no, it's not bullshit I made up, this was 20 years ago_). In 1995 another drove from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles, almost 2,500 miles, 98.2% autonomous. In 2005 five autonomous cars successfully drove 132 miles through the mojave desert along steep embankments and dropoffs, over hills, and through three tunnels. In 2010 one drove almost 10,000 miles across 9 countries. There have been many more achievements since, all across the world, including 2,000,000 miles by a Google car fleet you claim can't even make a turn. That's a lot of miles to drive in a straight line, like over 4 trips to the moon and back, lot of miles.

Just as with flying wings and stealth, the technology has again caught up with the design. This is not the beginning of the R&D required, it's the very end. Your friend, if you are representing his opinion fairly, is one voice in tens of thousands of the best experts in the world, and his opinion is in direct opposition to the real world results. My friend was the same way, and despite his extensive experience and expertise, he was wrong. It happens.

The earliest prediction by the manufacturers is 2017. Google is saying 2018. IMHO, as a person who has followed this for decades, if there are delays, especially long ones, it will be political resistance and not technology, safety, or actual real world results.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Trebor said:


> What all of yall are missing, is that until all cars are driverless, every driverless car, still requires a operator that can take over. It's going to be a sweet gig, to be a operator of a driverless car for at least 20 years. Sure, you probably have to focus when there is a passenger, but after that passenger gets out, you can sleep, play on your phone, etc.
> 
> As soon as Uber allows a "driverless" car to be used, I am buying one. You can easily get your 8 hours of sleep in and working for 24 hours at a time.
> 
> ...


Why do you think they will require drivers just because humans are still driving? Politically, that may end up being the case, which sucks, but there's no technological reason.

However, yes, when we finally ban human driving to a hobby off the roads, it will be a huge leap in everything transportation. No lanes, no traffic lights, extreme speeds with the entire net of cars acting in unison to deal with obstacles.

These are not autonomous, but it's a good example of what it will feel like:






In that example, which is ancient in terms of technology, the sensors and processors are outside of the nanocopters. It's the same concept though, except the sensors and processors will be on board the car communicating with both the central system(s) AND every car around.

A deer jumps out? The car in the path of impact can do whatever it needs to avoid it because every car around it will act in unison, clearing the best available path for both car and deer. Collision avoided in milliseconds in a manner humans will never be capable of.

Like you say though, the value of human driven cars is way too high to force a 100% change within decades. The day will come though when all new model cars for public roads will be autonomous. I think that will be the determinator, when the government refuses to allow new non-autonomous and force the attrition.

It's going to be interesting to see the battle between the two, and how it plays out, like the battle between horse and carriage and autos. At first, the laws were piled on restricting autos and favoring horses by the people who simply couldn't grasp the inevitable. Then, as time passed and the public got sick of the horses mucking up the works, the direction changed. Not long after, in relation to that era, horses became banned from the roads in most places. The same is inevitable with human driving. We are the horses.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Uber-licious said:


> Id like to see what happens when a pax pukes in a driver less car. Will it also be self cleaning like an oven? That next pax is in for a nice little surprise.


When the driverless car arrives, the next pax is required to examine it and acknowledge it is not damaged. If they say it is damaged, a new car is sent, the damaged car is examined through the cameras, evidence is recorded of the incident, and the offender is charged.

If the vandalism was intentional, the person who did it is turned into the police with the person's last known location, identity, picture, phone number, home address, and the card is charged for repairs.

I don't know why this subject is brought up like it's unsolvable. It's easily solvable. Random vandalism and property damage happens now from a very small percentage of people. I'm not sure how that is supposed to be a roadblock for SD when it isn't for anything else. Especially since catching the perpetrator will be so much easier in a SD car.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

As for fleet cars, they should make the entire interior hot swappable. It pulls into a station, doors open, the interior is pushed out one side as another is pushed in the other side. A couple of snap locks, close the door, off it goes. Put the used interior in a cleaning machine, it's as good as new 5 minutes later, ready to be inserted into the next arrival.

This way interiors can be kept clean and fresh consistently.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ClevelandUberRider said:


> Another reason for vehicle operating costs potentially being lower for owner-operator vehicles than driverless cars (whether Lyber own them or via leased fleet) is the simple fact that car owners generally take better care and keep costs down more than others. Case in point, the normal daily or weekly rental cars have much higher maint and repair costs per mile than owners' cars' for comparable model/year/mileage.


At first, because of investment into the brick and mortar locations and systems to maintain a fleet will be high, driverless cars may cost more to operate. In short order though, they will become much cheaper. It's far cheaper to maintain a fleet especially with standardised interchangeable parts. Driverless cars will actually be cheaper to build soon enough than human driven. Just removing the weight and complexity of the human interfaces and controls will save a bundle.

Removing the driver from the equation is a massive savings. Consider that the profit I put in my pocket in a single year driving part time could purchase at least 1 nice car.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Roadrage Ranger said:


> The real gorilla in the room is litigation. The most common nightmare being kicked around lately is:
> What if a self-driving car encounters a school bus loaded with kids, and the bus suddenly pulled out in front of it? Does it swerve off the side of the road and down a cliff, killing its own passengers? Does it crash into the bus?
> 
> If your answer is kill the auto-car passengers and save the kids, then who would want to ride in a computerized vehicle potentially programmed to kill them? If your answer was to crash into the busload of kids, then rest assured there's a long line of trial lawyers out there on your side.
> You can't win.


The negligence was the bus driver's, not the SDC. If I hit a school bus that pulled out in front of me, it's the same thing. I have no culpability. The non-offending driver is expected to react as well as possible to avoid the collision, not sacrifice their life.

I think, because this whole concept freaks people out, they imagine that SDCs will have to be perfect and make moral decisions. Even if the SDC is in the wrong, you have insurance. It's not like the awards get higher and the laws all change just because it's self driving. You have to show willful negligence or intent.

The bus driver's responsibility is the kids, the SDCs is its passengers, just like it is now.

Now, if a SDC accelerated into a bus of kids and was at fault, the SDC would be at fault. The injured would have claims. Massive awards are not for accidents, they come from knowing it could do this and doing nothing about it or hiding the flaw.


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## BurgerTiime (Jun 22, 2015)

Planes can fly themselves and more often than you know it, they are on autopilot but the FAA would never allow an unmanned cockpit. I see the same for driverless vehicles. Prob during mid trip (freeway) it will run in autopilot but regulations would require a driver at all times.
Just the other day a sign was clear across the road. I had to get out and move it. How will a diverless car do that!? How will a driverless car help with luggage? How will a driverless car clean up after someone who eats and spills on the seat? Too many factors for total driverless.


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## Trebor (Apr 22, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Why do you think they will require drivers just because humans are still driving? Politically, that may end up being the case, which sucks, but there's no technological reason.
> 
> However, yes, when we finally ban human driving to a hobby off the roads, it will be a huge leap in everything transportation. No lanes, no traffic lights, extreme speeds with the entire net of cars acting in unison to deal with obstacles.
> 
> ...


Yes, politically, they are not going to allow us use fully automated cars, until all drivers are off the road. Which, is probably not going to happen anytime soon, but when it does, you will find guys outlaws driving prius's on the back road like the horses. Other outlaws will be selling gasoline like it was crack.

I could see there will be "stop signs" as it is inevitable 2 cars will meet up at the same point. Of course, technology can prevent this if all of the cars are "talking" to one another and one goes a little bit slower, before the intersection, but I think that would be a ways off. I can see stop signs in our future. If only just for pedestrians.

Now, with that said. There will be no traffic. Most, if not all of the traffic is caused by someone going to fast, someone going to slow, accidents, etc. If all cars are traveling at the same exact speed, traffic will be minimal. Traffic will be caused by humans crossing at the wrong time, or taking their sweet time crossing, or simply debris in the road (such as a tree branch, but at the rate we are going, there will be no trees left).


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## Dar-K (Dec 18, 2015)

... Why would these SDC be exclusive to taxi-like companies??
I'd rock 1... Hell, possibly a married couple from a 2-car driving family could consolidate down to 1 (if the car could be programmed accordingly). Why call for a taxi? Going to the bar tonight? Have your SDC take care of it all for you. 
Not sure why Uber/Lyft would push so hard for this... The whole concept takes their original 'M-O' out of the equation. They're no longer a ride-share company, but something completely different. 
And if the cars are available to the public... They fail miserably. 
If the cars are not immediately available to the public, someone other company will create something similar. They should just stick with what they got.
SDC to current Uber driver's are just as much of a threat to regular Taxi Drivers. 
Heck, not sure why any big Auto companies would do it either, they'll sell less cars if people play it right. Big Oil - they'll push against it too (less oil profits). 

I think a lot of great things could have existed, but lobbyist probably went against it due to greed. That greed, may have kept a large amount of people employed, who knows? -- Look at Hemp, and how it was touted to be something great, but from my understanding, it was Lobbied against and deemed illegal. -- Look at the states that legalized it for medical & recreational use.. They're not sitting in any hurt, that's for sure.


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## Uberman8263 (Jan 11, 2015)

ClevelandUberRider said:


> To protect their assets and to improve on riders' experience, they are likely going to install multiple cameras, motion sensors, smell detectors, seat and floor wetness sensors and other monitoring gadgets whose realtime feeds are monitored by AI (which will be much cheaper than being watched by human eyeballs). Puking involves a number of signs, such as sudden and unusual movement, jerking, unusual sound, smell, wetness on seats or floor, etc., which may be picked by different devices, the data feeds of which will combine to trigger ("Estimated likelihood of puking in progress: 92%") a "Recalled to base station for confirmation and haz-mat cleanup". With these I doubt that pax will walk into a puke-contaminated SDC).


The answer is simple. When a paz enters a driverless car said paz will attach a 6 inch long piece of duck tape to his mouth.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

Trebor said:


> Yes, politically, they are not going to allow us use fully automated cars, until all drivers are off the road. Which, is probably not going to happen anytime soon, but when it does, you will find guys outlaws driving prius's on the back road like the horses. Other outlaws will be selling gasoline like it was crack.
> 
> I could see there will be "stop signs" as it is inevitable 2 cars will meet up at the same point. Of course, technology can prevent this if all of the cars are "talking" to one another and one goes a little bit slower, before the intersection, but I think that would be a ways off. I can see stop signs in our future. If only just for pedestrians.
> 
> Now, with that said. There will be no traffic. Most, if not all of the traffic is caused by someone going to fast, someone going to slow, accidents, etc. If all cars are traveling at the same exact speed, traffic will be minimal. Traffic will be caused by humans crossing at the wrong time, or taking their sweet time crossing, or simply debris in the road (such as a tree branch, but at the rate we are going, there will be no trees left).


a lot of people want to own their own cars and drive their own cars .it's ridiculous to think there will ever be a day when all drivers are off the road-- its not going to happen. We are a car a crazy nation and we will always be a car crazy nation. Americans are in love with the automobile , how you going to get rid of that?


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## JqYork (Jul 4, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> Not most, all accidents so far.


But the reason all accidents so far have involved human drivers is because the driverless car was driving so stupidly, it was doing things humans would never expect a car to do! These things are a lot farther off than these companies wish they were. http://uberdriverdiaries.com/not-so-fast-on-those-self-driving-cars-uber/


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## Trebor (Apr 22, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> a lot of people want to own their own cars and drive their own cars .it's ridiculous to think there will ever be a day when all drivers are off the road-- its not going to happen. We are a car a crazy nation and we will always be a car crazy nation. Americans are in love with the automobile , how you going to get rid of that?


Exactly what they said about the horses.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Trebor said:


> Exactly what they said about the horses.


You never heard of the Amish? They still drive horses. You gonna put them and real drivers in concentration camps if they don't abide by your Uber dystopic robot controlled future wet dream? lol


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## uberwerx (Dec 7, 2015)

SibeRescueBrian said:


> Just thought I'd lighten the mood a bit since it seems to be getting a little tense in here.
> View attachment 22694


LOLOL!


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## uberwerx (Dec 7, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> I am confused, you have made a dozen completely false claims about technology which I have pointed out with no reply from you, and you still want to make accusations? You have no idea what you are talking about. Absolutely none. When you think you do, you are at your worst.
> 
> Look, enjoy a video of a rocket engine landing itself after going to space, it might help bring you up to speed:
> 
> ...


Like said before I don't think we'll have driverless cars until we have flying cars. And we're all using them.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> a lot of people want to own their own cars and drive their own cars .it's ridiculous to think there will ever be a day when all drivers are off the road-- its not going to happen. We are a car a crazy nation and we will always be a car crazy nation. Americans are in love with the automobile , how you going to get rid of that?


I agree that eventually it's the voters and their elected leaders who make the law. If a city can ban or limit the choices and sizes of soda pop, maybe some gung-ho cities will try to ban or limit the choices and sizes of SDC. For example, no SDCs larger than ____ allowed, no SDCs allowed from noon to midnight on game days, no SDC allowed in city center 8-5 weekdays, no SDC parking anywhere in the city ("they can order their cars back to their home driveway!"). As in many other new things that challenge the interest of the old, the initial battle will be harder (for example, fighting for a parking spot) because there are more old players than new ones (there are more traditional car owners than SDC owners, all fighting for a parking spot).

An interesting note is, one of the biggest tailwinds for cars (vs horses) several decades back was that city folks (voters and lawmakers!) were getting sick and tired of the "thing" piling up everywhere in the city. Most novels and movies set in the era when horse and buggy served as a common mode of transportation understandably skip over the "thing". Even photos taken in that era mostly conveniently avoided that sight (do you want to have your mostly professionally-taken still photographs to include that "thing"?). So, as a citizen in this modern era, we rarely get to see or hear about that picture. But horses, like most other mammals, consume 1-2% of their weight in food daily, and most of it will be a by-product in due time. Multiply 1-2% to the typical adult horse's weight, and that's a lot of horse ____! Being not house-trained in this, the "thing" was all over the city, some being still very fresh by-product lying everywhere on city streets waiting for city street workers to push it, scoop it to the designated piles along city streets, with most already in those designated spots. That was the biggest daily city living issue at that time (ours is, arguably, potholes). That particular "push" factor is absent in the traditional car vs SDC debate, and potentially slows the SDC's widespread adoption by yet another few years (but of course, they eventually will be widely adopted).

I venture that most good, proud drivers here on UP are proud of our cars, enjoy being in our cars, especially love driving them, and we like being in control of our vehicles.

But of course, we will also have SDCs for long and frequent trips. An interesting note is that when automatic shift was first introduced in the market, a lot of macho men wouldn't want to get caught dead in one. Fast forward to today, I would bet that even Marlan P. isn't driving a stick shift.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Trebor said:


> Yes, politically, they are not going to allow us use fully automated cars, until all drivers are off the road. Which, is probably not going to happen anytime soon, but when it does, you will find guys outlaws driving prius's on the back road like the horses. Other outlaws will be selling gasoline like it was crack.
> 
> I could see there will be "stop signs" as it is inevitable 2 cars will meet up at the same point. Of course, technology can prevent this if all of the cars are "talking" to one another and one goes a little bit slower, before the intersection, but I think that would be a ways off. I can see stop signs in our future. If only just for pedestrians.
> 
> Now, with that said. There will be no traffic. Most, if not all of the traffic is caused by someone going to fast, someone going to slow, accidents, etc. If all cars are traveling at the same exact speed, traffic will be minimal. Traffic will be caused by humans crossing at the wrong time, or taking their sweet time crossing, or simply debris in the road (such as a tree branch, but at the rate we are going, there will be no trees left).


I think I'll disagree on the required drivers while there are human drivers. I don't see the correlation between a bad human driver canceling a SDC. But, political fear mongering may just prove you correct.

I'm with you there will be crosswalks and some type of light to show people it's safe to cross. We just won't need traffic lights as long as there is a standard for all SDCs to communicate. They will just behave like the nano-copters in the figure eight. Avoid each other.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

BurgerTiime said:


> Planes can fly themselves and more often than you know it, they are on autopilot but the FAA would never allow an unmanned cockpit. I see the same for driverless vehicles. Prob during mid trip (freeway) it will run in autopilot but regulations would require a driver at all times.
> Just the other day a sign was clear across the road. I had to get out and move it. How will a diverless car do that!? How will a driverless car help with luggage? How will a driverless car clean up after someone who eats and spills on the seat? Too many factors for total driverless.


Planes can theoretically fly pilotless now. The reason they aren't being considered are probably more economics, planes live damn near forever, and politics, unions dominate the industry. When you say "never", that's probably not correct. We will probably have unpiloted craft at some time. There's just no real incentive at this point.

How does a driverless car deal with an obstruction? Drive around it and notify humans. If it can't drive around, reroute and let all other SDC know to reroute. It's pretty efficient.

Luggage, spills, vandalism, these just aren't hard to resolve at all. There are so many easy answers. They are also not common needs.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Dar-K said:


> Heck, not sure why any big Auto companies would do it either, they'll sell less cars if people play it right. Big Oil - they'll push against it too (less oil profits).


Big auto? Because you can't beat them. They will have to join them. Big oil is becoming big energy. Oil has a future, for sure, but the ones that sit on the sidelines become BlockBuster Video.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> a lot of people want to own their own cars and drive their own cars .it's ridiculous to think there will ever be a day when all drivers are off the road-- its not going to happen. We are a car a crazy nation and we will always be a car crazy nation. Americans are in love with the automobile , how you going to get rid of that?


This was said about horses too. I think you overestimate the new generation's interest in cars and driving. They just don't talk cars like they used to. A lot of that may be because we can no longer work on our own cars like we used to. Also, "tech" is the new American fascination. They like starbucks, not garages.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

JqYork said:


> But the reason all accidents so far have involved human drivers is because the driverless car was driving so stupidly, it was doing things humans would never expect a car to do! These things are a lot farther off than these companies wish they were. http://uberdriverdiaries.com/not-so-fast-on-those-self-driving-cars-uber/


Well, first, your source is anything but unbiased. They took an interesting fact, that SDCs are so safe they are hard for humans to predict, and spun an opinion piece. The accidents are from impatient and careless humans, not stupid SDCs.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> You never heard of the Amish? They still drive horses. You gonna put them and real drivers in concentration camps if they don't abide by your Uber dystopic robot controlled future wet dream? lol


Do you really think there aren't laws about horses on roads?! You can't be serious. Are we up to concentration camps now?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberwerx said:


> Like said before I don't think we'll have driverless cars until we have flying cars. And we're all using them.


Sorry, you lost me. No idea what one has to do with the other.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

ClevelandUberRider said:


> I agree that eventually it's the voters and their elected leaders who make the law. If a city can ban or limit the choices and sizes of soda pop, maybe some gung-ho cities will try to ban or limit the choices and sizes of SDC. For example, no SDCs larger than ____ allowed, no SDCs allowed from noon to midnight on game days, no SDC allowed in city center 8-5 weekdays, no SDC parking anywhere in the city ("they can order their cars back to their home driveway!"). As in many other new things that challenge the interest of the old, the initial battle will be harder (for example, fighting for a parking spot) because there are more old players than new ones (there are more traditional car owners than SDC owners, all fighting for a parking spot).
> 
> An interesting note is, one of the biggest tailwinds for cars (vs horses) several decades back was that city folks (voters and lawmakers!) were getting sick and tired of the "thing" piling up everywhere in the city. Most novels and movies set in the era when horse and buggy served as a common mode of transportation understandably skip over the "thing". Even photos taken in that era mostly conveniently avoided that sight (do you want to have your mostly professionally-taken still photographs to include that "thing"?). So, as a citizen in this modern era, we rarely get to see or hear about that picture. But horses, like most other mammals, consume 1-2% of their weight in food daily, and most of it will be a by-product in due time. Multiply 1-2% to the typical adult horse's weight, and that's a lot of horse ____! Being not house-trained in this, the "thing" was all over the city, some being still very fresh by-product lying everywhere on city streets waiting for city street workers to push it, scoop it to the designated piles along city streets, with most already in those designated spots. That was the biggest daily city living issue at that time (ours is, arguably, potholes). That particular "push" factor is absent in the traditional car vs SDC debate, and potentially slows the SDC's widespread adoption by yet another few years (but of course, they eventually will be widely adopted).
> 
> ...


The safety record of SDCs will be the driving force along with the convenience.

I read a report that was saying because cars are only used 5% of the time, while a SDC can run nearly full time, a single SDC in a city could displace 16 cars. The thing is, people won't need the expense of cars in a city, so they will get rid of them for economic reasons.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

SDCs are likely to increase oil (or electricity, if electric cars) consumption. Except rare cases, such as luxury goods etc., generally when the price of a product falls, the demand for it increases. The price we pay for using our own cars for a trip of our own includes all the car-related costs we are already familiar with on UP (depr., fuel, repairs and maint), but it also includes the time and effort required of us to make that trip (driving). I know most of us enjoy driving and being out there, but for the sake of discussion here let's say it's a chore (it becomes increasingly true when we are driving beyond a few hours a day). Now if Cleveland resident Mr A has parents who live in upstate New York whom he would love to visit as often as possible. Presently A manages to make only three trips per year due to his and his wife's busy professional careers, and scheduling conflicts among them and their two teenage kids. With SDCs, he can easily keep the three trips per year visiting his parents with his own family, while making another three to five trips per year on his own (I bet it will be more than that) that his schedule) that fit his own schedule and during which ride he can rest, sleep, or do some of his professional work in the car). Same thing with "taking a drive" to the countryside or around the city. Or even a trip to the grocery store. Not to mention medium and long road trips. 

And if more miles are being driven (per person in the country) because of this, the auto makers will not be selling less, but more, cars in the long run (assuming same rate of wear and tear as before, but of course depreciation rate will be different, both from design/engineering as well as from way of driving).


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## Toby (Dec 16, 2014)

They are coming eventually, once here my question is how will the car know who ordered it and prevent the wrong drunk from getting in? A code perhaps? 

Will people want to travel in a car while being videotaped? Many will not.

There will still be real taxis for awhile though because some people only use cash or like to travel anonymously or not interested in ordering a car on a phone or want local advice.

Once established I guarantee that only very wealthy people will have the option of driving a human driven car.


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> The safety record of SDCs will be the driving force along with the convenience.
> 
> I read a report that was saying because cars are only used 5% of the time, while a SDC can run nearly full time, a single SDC in a city could displace 16 cars. The thing is, people won't need the expense of cars in a city, so they will get rid of them for economic reasons.


Yes, that was one of the things TNC players cite in support of the "sharing" economy. A lot of stuff we own, we only use them for a small percentage of their reasonable, maximum usable hours (which is not 24 hours per day of course--even stuff, like TNC drivers, need to rest). Entire house or just a room(s), tools, cars (or "ride"), housemaids (one famous player just went bankrupt, in 2015 I think, one of the reasons being because they couldn't train the PCs a lot of PCs without prior housekeeping experience were signing up and started working after only watching a video!).


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## ClevelandUberRider (Nov 28, 2015)

Toby said:


> They are coming eventually, once here my question is how will the car know who ordered it and prevent the wrong drunk from getting in? A code perhaps?
> 
> Will people want to travel in a car while being videotaped? Many will not.
> 
> ...


Yes, just like owning and riding horses for big city folks, and having one of the two spouses stay home to play with the kids for two-college-graduates family with or without double student loans (and with or without babysitter(s) helping out). Things that used to be common among middle and working class, now are largely only enjoyed by upper-middle class and the wealthy. But of course, car ownership will likely still be middle class in the countryside when cities are swarmed with SDCs, just like horseback riding is still largely middle class in the countryside today.


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## Uber-ray (Dec 28, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> .
> .
> It's going to be interesting to see the battle between the two, and how it plays out, like the battle between horse and carriage and autos. At first, the laws were piled on restricting autos and favoring horses by the people who simply couldn't grasp the inevitable. Then, as time passed and the public got sick of the horses mucking up the works, the direction changed. Not long after, in relation to that era, horses became banned from the roads in most places. The same is inevitable with human driving. We are the horses.


That's a great analogy.

It would require total trust in technology and and almost God-like belief that the best decisions will be made on our behalf under all circumstances. Otherwise who will step into one of these things? As a society we will never have been so deeply dependent on technology with out a manual backup system in place.

So what would happen if China or Iran knocked out or disabled the satellites needed for navigation? Or a hacker cell inside a corporation sets certain BMWs to go renegade at 5:45PM on a certain day? Will we fully trust the people in charge of installing, maintaining, and protecting all the parts? If even one element of the net goes bad, it will have a chain reaction effect through the whole system, potentially stranding millions. Based on the number of recent massive cyber breaches that have hit government and industry, we have a long way to go.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Uber-ray said:


> That's a great analogy.
> 
> It would require total trust in technology and and almost God-like belief that the best decisions will be made on our behalf under all circumstances. Otherwise who will step into one of these things? As a society we will never have been so deeply dependent on technology with out a manual backup system in place.
> 
> So what would happen if China or Iran knocked out or disabled the satellites needed for navigation? Or a hacker cell inside a corporation sets certain BMWs to go renegade at 5:45PM on a certain day? Will we fully trust the people in charge of installing, maintaining, and protecting all the parts? If even one element of the net goes bad, it will have a chain reaction effect through the whole system, potentially stranding millions. Based on the number of recent massive cyber breaches that have hit government and industry, we have a long way to go.


That's all fair. All of it is possible. An even bigger fear we might have though is failing and letting China be first and taking over the market. For them, this could represent a huge opportunity to jump past the world's car industries at a time when they have everything they need to do it. They have the capital, their manufacturing capabilities are second to none, they certainly have the will.

I think that's the last element of why this, SDC hitting the roads, will happen sooner rather than later beacause it's a one shot deal to be the market leader.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Toby said:


> They are coming eventually, once here my question is how will the car know who ordered it and prevent the wrong drunk from getting in? A code perhaps?


Probably. Code you enter to open door, fingerprint ID, face recognition, bluetooth handshake or a combination.



Toby said:


> Will people want to travel in a car while being videotaped? Many will not.


I have a camera now and no one complains. The people who don't want to be recorded are probably more the people who you don't want in the car. The big brother factor really is big though. Of course, if the public can buy SDCs they could avoid being recorded. Another option could be a VIP level service where you pay for trust.



Toby said:


> There will still be real taxis for awhile though because some people only use cash or like to travel anonymously or not interested in ordering a car on a phone or want local advice.


You make good points. Human interaction through video could also be a premium service or one sponsored by businesses or tourism associations. Imagine the entire windshield is actually a curved screen. It would normally appear just like a windshield but if you want to see local attractions you choose them on a touch screen and the windshield is now a way to see attractions on the big screen. Scan a code to buy tickets or get in line.



Toby said:


> Once established I guarantee that only very wealthy people will have the option of driving a human driven car.


Reminds me of Rush - 2012 - Red Barchetta.


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## radzer0 (Oct 26, 2015)

Slon said:


> I suspect that Uber will not be interested in owning the fleet of driverless cars. I think they rather like the idea of having someone else bear the burden of maintenance. You buy yourself a driverless car, you drive to work, and once you are there you send your car to drive for uber, then in the evening it comes to pick you up and take you home...
> 
> It's a nice fantasy - but currently driverless cars struggle with bad weather, get horribly confused by snow and I cannot imagine how they would easily deal with the pax never being at the pickup site or damaging the interior.
> 
> I don't see Uber being able to leverage driverless cars anytime soon. Driverless trucks maybe - highway routes are easy, driverless busses that go down predefined well established routes, sure - cars with NO driver to take control if something goes wrong? Not anytime soon.


I agree with this one, I think one of the auto companies will get with them or maybe just borrow the technology. For some reason I think audi would do this one. They could put out a4 cars with the tech for prob $25k cost per car vs around $50k retail.


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## UberBeemer (Oct 23, 2015)

I've been a reader of things like Popular Mechanics, Omni, Popular Science, etc. for a long time. I know technology is quantum leaps beyond the time when we started seeing articles suggesting such things. But so far, no one is commuting in a jet pack, flying, or floating car, that I know of. I suspect driverless cars might not really be popular in my lifetime.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

Trebor said:


> Exactly what they said about the horses.


specious comparison for a number of reasons. the biggest reason is that people wanted cars after they started paving the roads. the advantage of a motor vehicle over a horse is much more significant than the advantage of a driverless car over a driven car in terms of desirability. so the big if in the driverless car comparison is whether or not people will want them enough to get rid of cars in general. people love to drive and the desirability of a driverless car compared to a driven car over the desirability of a horse versus a car is nowhere near as great. I could be wrong, of course, but I'm just not seeing it nor am I seeing the validity of your comparison


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## uberwerx (Dec 7, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Sorry, you lost me. No idea what one has to do with the other.


Hey don't worry about what I said just read the links I put in my posts. That should explain everything.


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## UberBeemer (Oct 23, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> specious comparison for a number of reasons. the biggest reason is that people wanted cars after they started paving the roads. the advantage of a motor vehicle over a horse is much more significant than the advantage of a driverless car over a driven car in terms of desirability. so the big if in the driverless car comparison is whether or not people will want them enough to get rid of cars in general. people love to drive and the desirability of a driverless car compared to a driven car over the desirability of a horse versus a car is nowhere near as great. I could be wrong, of course, but I'm just not seeing it nor am I seeing the validity of your comparison


Good points. Americans, in particular, LOVE their cars. We love the freedom and control associated with operating a car. It's considered by a lot of people to be a right. The driverless car satisfies none of the urges that owning and driving a car stimulate.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

UberBeemer said:


> Good points. Americans, in particular, LOVE their cars.


And this can be confirmed by the HUGE popularity of the many car programs now on TV. My favorites are Street Outlaws, Counting Cars, Fast and Loud, Overlaulin Here is one list: http://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/automotive-tv-shows-and-series I would like to see Jay Leno's Garage, but haven't caught that yet.


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## UberBeemer (Oct 23, 2015)

Leno's garage is pretty lame. He's got a great collection but I never really liked him.


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## Uber-ray (Dec 28, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> This was said about horses too. I think you overestimate the new generation's interest in cars and driving. They just don't talk cars like they used to. A lot of that may be because we can no longer work on our own cars like we used to. Also, "tech" is the new American fascination. They like starbucks, not garages.


The next generation of adults is more interested in "access", not ownership. They want the benefits of technology but not the headaches and responsibilities. Economic realities are pushing things that way because maintaining anything complicated gets expensive. And I don't know if going in that direction is a good thing or a bad thing.


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## uberparadise (Aug 2, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> If an Uber vehicle had no driver, how can it be called a "ridesharing" vehicle, given that machines are not sharing anything with anyone ?


After the IPO, Uber will screw the shareholders just like they screwed the drivers for the past years. Uber will cross that bridge when it comes! They will create another LLC instead of raiser (which has a sexual or a cutting meaning subliminally) they will call it Ghost car LLC or pay Charlie Sheen for the rights to Winning LLC.


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## Oscar Levant (Aug 15, 2014)

RamzFanz said:


> You lack the reasoning to grasp that those are nostalgia shows with a fixed and limited viewership. Hey, I like Harleys, hey I like cars, hey I drove route 66, hey I once watched Howdy Doody. No one cares. Jay Leno? Are you kidding?
> 
> Did your love of a land line stop cell service? Did your love of cable stop satellite service? Did your love of flip phones stop smart phones? No one is racing dead man's curve anymore. No one cares how big a carb is anymore. No one cares about mechanics.
> 
> ...


you're assuming that people will love driverless cars like people love smart phones. a few people might but it's not going to be like smartphones or cars taking over horse and buggies these are false comparisons


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## uberparadise (Aug 2, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> you're assuming that people will love driverless cars like people love smart phones. a few people might but it's not going to be like smartphones or cars taking over horse and buggies these are false comparisons


You are on to something. The drunk crowd will pee, smoke, vomit, poop, and trash out these cars. Guess they didn't think it through!


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## uberparadise (Aug 2, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> ...and will be charged for it, just like now. Guess you didn't think it through.


How will they know? Cameras on the floorboard, above , below , on the sits? Put the car out of commission? Next group of passengers finding the mess? What if a rowdy group of fans light the thing on fire? How about flipping it upside down? You are trusting human nature to much. You obviously don't drive much if it all for rideshare. Trust me I have had many passengers mess with my car in all kind of ways. Many I never even imagined until I started dealing with riders. Good luck with the robotic cars Uber and Lyft. WAIT I HAVE A BRILLIANT IDEA : pay someone to sit in the robotic car and monitor the passengers behavior.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberparadise said:


> How will they know? Cameras on the floorboard, above , below , on the sits? Put the car out of commission? Next group of passengers finding the mess? What if a rowdy group of fans light the thing on fire? How about flipping it upside down? You are trusting human nature to much. You obviously don't drive much if it all for rideshare. Trust me I have had many passengers mess with my car in all kind of ways. Many I never even imagined until I started dealing with riders. Good luck with the robotic cars Uber and Lyft. WAIT I HAVE A BRILLIANT IDEA : pay someone to sit in the robotic car and monitor the passengers behavior.


It's just silly that people think roaming gangs will attack driverless cars as if all humans spend their time committing crimes and facing huge debts and prison.

Car pulls up, pax looks it over and agrees it's clean and undamaged. Pretty simple. If they don't agree, a new car is sent and the current one is examined through cameras, offender is charged for damage, moving on.


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## dpv (Oct 12, 2015)

No matter how advance the computer is there will always be someone right there remotely babysitting it.


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## uberparadise (Aug 2, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> It's just silly that people think roaming gangs will attack driverless cars as if all humans spend their time committing crimes and facing huge debts and prison.
> 
> Car pulls up, pax looks it over and agrees it's clean and undamaged. Pretty simple. If they don't agree, a new car is sent and the current one is examined through cameras, offender is charged for damage, moving on.


Wait til Dodgers win the series. Kings take the cup. How about a cop killing another child? The possibilities are endless. Insurance will say act of God. My point is this robotic car thing has its own list of issues !


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## sellkatsell44 (Oct 25, 2015)

Bingo

And I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't already something built in the cars being manufactured but not yet activated, where if it's near another car it will be able to "talk" to the car.

Social media and movies will be used to further (as you see examples of cars driving themselves or being done so remotely) comforting the everyday folk into accepting driverless cars.

I mean, I think it's pretty cool the tesla can park itself but I'm pretty sure if I was in an office somewhere I can park the tesla or drive the tesla too. Bmw also launched a similar concept.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberparadise said:


> Wait til Dodgers win the series. Kings take the cup. How about a cop killing another child? The possibilities are endless.


Yes, an because of extremely rare riots, we no longer have cars, right?

I have an idea, just insure the cars, and no, riots are not an act of god.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Tesla is the leader in the robo-myth cars. Let's just call them the Google Glasses of cars. Tesla has shown to be nothing but an abject failure, but that won't stop them from continuing to pump the myth.

*Under the new update, Tesla's vehicles **won't be able to go into autopilot on residential streets or roads without a center divider**. The autopilot also won't be able to exceed the posted speed limit by more than 5 miles per hour. *(Likely updated because the Cannon Ball racers almost got killed when the car wanted to go full speed into curves at 90 mph)

_So, they finally are forced to admit they can't make their car drive on roads that are not perfectly marked. Their "driverless" car has to be driven to a perfect highway by a human driver and then a human driver has to stand by, eyes on the road and hands to the ready to grab the steering wheel during the very likely occasions when the car decides to either commit suicide or to murder you._

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-restricts-autopilot-on-residential-streets-1452446300​


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

volksie said:


> And if you started your biz as "UberCab" & you aspire to run "Driverless Cars", how can you claim you're not a transportation company?
> How do you claim you gave your "Billionth Ride" as a tech company? If it's just an app service, why provide auto insurance at all?


Entry into the taxi business is a mere stepping stone of Uber. Do you think they have spent billions on developing driverless technology to deliver pizza? Uber recently attempted unsuccessfully to acquire a precise mapping company (their bid was $3 billion) so that driverless cars could know EXACTLY where riders were which is essential in discriminating between riders in metro areas. They were outbid by Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche who put in a joint bid specifically to deal with development of their own driverless cars.

Google, who is the leading in development with 6 years under their belt, has an autonomous 4 vehicle fleet with 500,000+ miles without a single at fault accident including urban settings. To show how far the technology has advanced; the only real issue facing developers of autonomous technology are the instantaneous life/death scenarios such as .......do I hit the approaching car who has crossed the median head-on or do I hit the pedestrians in the crosswalk. Sounds funny but sadly for all drivers for hire....very true. There is minor issue with them driving too slow since they are programmed to max out at the street/highway's speed limit. Can't imagine that's much of a hard fix.

Autonomous cars will be a common sight on roadways within 3 years. The reason Uber is values at $51B is because every dime they pay us will go directly to the bottom line. Now do the same thing for all the OTR truckers, etc.. Got a calculator to see how much that is in annual profits?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Billy-Bob said:


> Entry into the taxi business is a mere stepping stone of Uber. Do you think they have spent billions on developing driverless technology to deliver pizza? Uber recently attempted unsuccessfully to acquire a precise mapping company (their bid was $3 billion) so that driverless cars could know EXACTLY where riders were which is essential in discriminating between riders in metro areas. They were outbid by Mercedes, Audi, and Porsche who put in a joint bid specifically to deal with development of their own driverless cars.
> 
> Google, who is the leading in development with 6 years under their belt, has an autonomous 4 vehicle fleet with 500,000+ miles without a single at fault accident including urban settings. To show how far the technology has advanced; the only real issue facing developers of autonomous technology are the instantaneous life/death scenarios such as .......do I hit the approaching car who has crossed the median head-on or do I hit the pedestrians in the crosswalk. Sounds funny but sadly for all drivers for hire....very true. There is minor issue with them driving too slow since they are programmed to max out at the street/highway's speed limit. Can't imagine that's much of a hard fix.
> 
> Autonomous cars will be a common sight on roadways within 3 years. The reason Uber is values at $51B is because every dime they pay us will go directly to the bottom line. Now do the same thing for all the OTR truckers, etc.. Got a calculator to see how much that is in annual profits?


I think they are now over 2,000,000 miles without an accident caused by the google car.

The arguments about the "ethical" decisions is an interesting one in that it is as unsolvable as it is for human drivers. I read an interesting legal article about this where the author concluded it is irrelevant. The SDC will be no more required to make this decision than we are now. The SDC will attempt to hit no one and nothing, and if it fails, it fails, but will not have any liability. The perception that some have that it must be perfect and moral is not based in reality or rule of law.


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## uberparadise (Aug 2, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> ...and will be charged for it, just like now.


You are forgetting about the disgruntled Uber and Lyft drivers that have been taken advantage of followed by being replaced. . Many times the disenchanted masses have rebelled and turned to choas. 100,000 mad out of work drivers and yes they will be holding a grudge. Those 100k Teslas will look like Junkers within a year!


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberparadise said:


> You are forgetting about the disgruntled Uber and Lyft drivers that have been repkaced. Many times the disenchanted masses have rebelled and turned to choas. 100,000 mad out of work drivers and yes they will be holding a grudge. Those 100k Teslas will look like Junkers within a year!


I'm not forgetting about them at all. I just don't buy into the typically law abiding citizen turning into a ski mask wearing mob facing massive costs and jail over a business deal. Uber drivers don't have a recent criminal history and have a clean driving record. Your basic law abiding citizen. You really think they will just become criminals over a slow reduction in drivers?


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## uberparadise (Aug 2, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> I'm not forgetting about them at all. I just don't buy into the typically law abiding citizen turning into a ski mask wearing mob facing massive costs and jail over a business deal. Uber drivers don't have a recent criminal history and have a clean driving record. Your basic law abiding citizen. You really think they will just become criminals over a slow reduction in drivers?


I get it you are probably right. I just wanted to believe this job would last. I was making good money in 2014 / 2015 and it just seems to get worse as time goes on. I was feeling good about myself and had a hope and future. Guess I have to find the newest trend and ride the wave while it lasts. This new share economy moves at light speed.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberparadise said:


> I get it you are probably right. I just wanted to believe this job would last. I was making good money in 2014 / 2015 and it just seems to get worse as time goes on. I was feeling good about myself and had a hope and future. Guess I have to find the newest trend and ride the wave while it lasts. This new share economy moves at light speed.


Yeah, this gig isn't gonna last as a full time income. I wouldn't worry about SDCs taking your job. It will roll out slowly. You have years to find something better.


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## UberBeemer (Oct 23, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> You lack the reasoning to grasp that those are nostalgia shows with a fixed and limited viewership. Hey, I like Harleys, hey I like cars, hey I drove route 66, hey I once watched Howdy Doody. No one cares. Jay Leno? Are you kidding?
> 
> Did your love of a land line stop cell service? Did your love of cable stop satellite service? Did your love of flip phones stop smart phones? No one is racing dead man's curve anymore. No one cares how big a carb is anymore. No one cares about mechanics.
> 
> ...


 Ramz, what the hell?

Did anyone love a land line when they realized they could take a call anywhere? And did anyone love a flip phone that had a crappy little screen and hardly any features? And, what was the last car to be produced with a carb? And satellite TV compared to cable? Sorry, I like to watch movies when it's raining or snowing. Something I never got to do when I had directTV.

You know how I know you're wrong? Horsepower is available in unbridled quantities. 650Hp Vett? Yep. 650 Hp Camaro? Check. What's the mustang GT pumping out now?435 Hp? What about the dodge Hellcat? 700Hp? How about the Caddy CTS-V? These are the examples of the high end, but even average cars are producing 200+ Hp. People LOVE these cars. Roads are full of cars with only one person in them. Driverless cars just maybe will play a part in changing the ride share industry, but Ill be shocked if that happens anytime soon. Not because the tech won't be viable. But because they'll be expensive, and because they'll be something people are reluctant to trust. I think what we'll have first is the lane keeping and adaptive cruise, and emergency braking on even the cheapest cars, like ABS is now. But look how long it took for the industry and it's regulators to move in that direction. Airbags were invented in the 1960's. But they weren't standard equipment for a long time after that. Fuel injection was invented in the 1920's. Wasn't in production before the late '50's. An intelligent car that can process all the input a human can, and react as quickly and appropriately is still a way's off.


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## UberBeemer (Oct 23, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Tesla is the leader in the robo-myth cars. Let's just call them the Google Glasses of cars. Tesla has shown to be nothing but an abject failure, but that won't stop them from continuing to pump the myth.
> 
> *Under the new update, Tesla's vehicles **won't be able to go into autopilot on residential streets or roads without a center divider**. The autopilot also won't be able to exceed the posted speed limit by more than 5 miles per hour. *(Likely updated because the Cannon Ball racers almost got killed when the car wanted to go full speed into curves at 90 mph)
> 
> ...


So far the best we have is the Lane Keeping and Adaptive Cruise and Emergency Braking. I suspect that's going to be a plateau for a while. Tesla's are more remarkable for their battery tech. But there is R&D money there. 
Something that people tend to forget is that all these computers are going to need updates to fix bugs and activate new features. What I am a little worried about, is that the hackers of the world will turn their attention towards disrupting autonomous cars like they do personal computers.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

US Marines say no thanks to noisy Google Robots. I guess Google can bury another one in the failed projects sandbox next to Google Glasses. Google should have invested in horses. Both Spot and LS3 (the robots) are reportedly in storage, with no future experiments planned.
http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ct-bigdog-robot-boston-dynamics-ls3-too-noisy


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

QUOTE="SafeT, post: 732554, member: 35998"]US Marines say no thanks to noisy Google Robots. I guess Google can bury another one in the failed projects sandbox next to Google Glasses. Google should have invested in horses. Both Spot and LS3 (the robots) are reportedly in storage, with no future experiments planned.[/QUOTE]

Yeah; that robot thing is just a fad. you know, kind of like flat screens, genome research, smart phones and that internet thingy. Next we'll have some idiot thinking drones will catch on.

Auto manufacturers are investing BILLIONS into autonomous technology. GM alone put $500M into Lyft last week to work on driverless technology together.


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## 5 Star Guy (Nov 7, 2015)

Ford is testing in snow now. The critics are toast when that passes.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

5 Star Guy said:


> Ford is testing in snow now. The critics are toast when that passes.


The critics are toast when it's on the street as a consumer owned vehicle. Ford is testing it in MCity which is a fake little town they build and that's cool and all but years away from being ready for a real town. (http://www.mtc.umich.edu/test-facility )


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

Slon said:


> The critics are toast when it's on the street as a consumer owned vehicle. Ford is testing it in MCity which is a fake little town they build and that's cool and all but years away from being ready for a real town.


 The reason Uber is valued at $51B after just 6 years isn't because its profitable now (because its still losing hundreds of millions a year). Its because every nickel Uber pays drivers drops directly to the bottom line when they eliminate drivers.

A wise man once said...the future is foisted upon those focused on the present.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

Billy-Bob said:


> The reason Uber is valued at $51B after just 6 years isn't because its profitable now (because its still losing hundreds of millions a year). Its because every nickel Uber pays drivers drops directly to the bottom line when they eliminate drivers.
> 
> A wise man once said...the future is foisted upon those focused on the present.


Uber doesn't pay drivers a penny. Uber takes a CUT from our earnings. They are only losing money because they are rapidly growing. Uber's current valuation is not relevant to self driving cars.

People love bringing up horses and buggies - but keep in mind it took well over 30 years for the automobile to actually start to take on and replace the horse and buggy. Yet people here seem to think that we will have self driving cars by 2020 - all because they believe a company who has a vested interest in making it sound like the technology is around the corner. It's like believing tobacco manufacturers that smoking isn't bad for you.


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

Slon said:


> Uber doesn't pay drivers a penny. Uber takes a CUT from our earnings. They are only losing money because they are rapidly growing. Uber's current valuation is not relevant to self driving cars.
> 
> People love bringing up horses and buggies - but keep in mind it took well over 30 years for the automobile to actually start to take on and replace the horse and buggy. Yet people here seem to think that we will have self driving cars by 2020 - all because they believe a company who has a vested interest in making it sound like the technology is around the corner. It's like believing tobacco manufacturers that smoking isn't bad for you.


You can argue the semantics of who pays who all you like but remember that it is Uber who facilities the business transaction. The real issue is where the beta falls (I had to look that one up) after Uber goes driverless.

Regarding the rate of change in business today, particularly in the area of technology as compared to 100 years ago, is telling. It's only eclipsed by the statement that Uber's valuation is not reflective of their intent to go driver less and the impact of such a move will have on net revenues. You know, the very same number investment houses and other sophisticated investors look at before they invest.

As an FYI - besides Uber the single biggest benefactor of self-driving technology is going to be JB Hunt so you might want to start buying a bit of their stock - at least that's what Barrons says (but of course you know better). Oh and I know you already know this but for clarification JBH only has 1,200 OTR drivers. How many drivers does Uber have?

While you're not buying that stock or using a calculator to figure out how much Uber saves by eliminating drivers you might at the very least want to ask yourself why Uber bothered last year to put in an unsuccessful bid of $3B to buy Nokia Here; Nokia's high precision mapping division. Since I know you're familiar with Nokia Here I'll say for other readers benefit that it's so precise it's like comparing Google Maps to the dusty globe you keep around for sentimental sake.

Hmmm, wonder why Uber would possibly want a more precise mapping vendor when they already use what's available from Apple and Google. Oh that's right. Nokia Here can distinguish between locations only a few feet apart when by comparison Google/Apple get you "pretty close". Wow, high precision locating would be really handy in an environment without a driver to make that determination. I'm sure Uber wasn't even thinking about that when they were preparing to layout $3B. Or, and I'm only guessing here, maybe it's because in comparison to what drivers take from total revenue - $3B is peanuts. On second thought.......Uber thinking of themselves over their drivers - no way. Right?


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

Billy-Bob said:


> Your naiveté regarding the rate of change in business today, particularly in the area of technology as compared to 100 years ago, is telling.


The Nokia stuff is old news - like 2014 old news. You're not posting anything I don't know. I keep posting that it will take ~30 years for this technology to go mainstream - and get told that it's essentially happening right now.

But don't take my opinion:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2015/10/15/the-road-to-self-driving-cars-a-timeline/ - estimate 2030
http://www.fastcompany.com/3025722/will-you-ever-be-able-to-afford-a-self-driving-car?partner=rss - 2035
http://www.wowwoodys.com/geared-up/auto-pilot - 2030

But keep telling me that I'm the one naive about the rate of change.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

Oscar Levant said:


> If an Uber vehicle had no driver, how can it be called a "ridesharing" vehicle, given that machines are not sharing anything with anyone ?


I can see it now . . . 
Hacking of driverless cars.
Pirates holding passengers for ransom.
No driver means no referee.
Driverless cars will be a cheap hotel for couples . . . .


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

Forbes article - estimate 2030
The subheading says it best...."Don't take a nap. Autonomous driving will be introduced in stages over the next 15 years." A basic course in critical reading would have given you the understanding that the subheading tacitly implies the rollout will be COMPLETED, not commence, in 15 years.

Fast Company article - 2035
The article says NOTHING about expected rollout dates. All it says is "IHS predicts that annual sales between 2025 and 2035 will jump from 230,000 to 11.8 million". I guess those 230,000 vehicles in 2025 are going to appear overnight.


Wow Woody's article - 2030
Direct quote from the article ....."In Europe, there is a push to have self-driven vehicles on the road by 2018 and in the United States that expectation has been set to 2020".


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## 5 Star Guy (Nov 7, 2015)

What exactly is this alleged time frame based on? The way I see it, its the roads and legislation not the cars or the technology.


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## SafeT (Nov 23, 2015)

Billy-Bob said:


> What are you -


The paid Uber shill dark force is strong on this thread. Also known as pump and dump investors.


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

5 Star Guy said:


> What exactly is this alleged time frame based on? The way I see it, its the roads and legislation not the cars or the technology.


Legislation won't be an issue. Actually, legislators will fall all over themselves to support autonomous cars. Reduction in police forces dedicated to traffic control, accidents and handing out those nasty citations is the most obvious. Then you have secondary considerations such as reduced wear and tear on infrastructure due to more efficient and sane use (not many burnouts preprogrammed I suspect). Estimates claim a reduction in 21,000 vehicle deaths a year. Hate to sound draconian but those are tax payers who are getting killed off in most instances.

A huge cost to society right now is loss of productivity (legislators see that as lost taxes) due to congestion, often times caused by accidents and an ailing infrastructure which hasn't come close to keeping up with population increases. Autonomous vehicles would smooth out some congestion issues and pretty much eliminate accidents delaying the need to overhaul the infrastructure.

Remember......Legislators see us lowly minions as revenue (taxes) producing machines. Anything they can do to make us more productive adds to their coffers and allows them to piss away even more money.

Not really sure why you say roads would be an issue. Can you explain?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

SafeT said:


> US Marines say no thanks to noisy Google Robots. I guess Google can bury another one in the failed projects sandbox next to Google Glasses. Google should have invested in horses. Both Spot and LS3 (the robots) are reportedly in storage, with no future experiments planned.
> http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ct-bigdog-robot-boston-dynamics-ls3-too-noisy


Dude, that robotic technology is a decade old and not developed by Google.

By the way, Google glasses were prototypes silly, they were never going to be a product line as they were. Less than a month ago Google filed a new application with the Federal Communications Commission for a new version of the Google Glass.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Billy-Bob said:


> HA HA HA.......yeah; that robot thing is just a fad....you know, kind of like flat screens, genome research, smart phones and that internet thingy. Next we'll have some idiot thinking drones will catch on.
> 
> Auto manufacturers are investing BILLIONS into autonomous technology. GM alone put $500M into Lyft last week to work on driverless technology together.


I had a friend in the 90s who would tell me all the time the internet was a fad and had no real uses.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> Uber doesn't pay drivers a penny. Uber takes a CUT from our earnings. They are only losing money because they are rapidly growing. Uber's current valuation is not relevant to self driving cars.
> 
> People love bringing up horses and buggies - but keep in mind it took well over 30 years for the automobile to actually start to take on and replace the horse and buggy. Yet people here seem to think that we will have self driving cars by 2020 - all because they believe a company who has a vested interest in making it sound like the technology is around the corner. It's like believing tobacco manufacturers that smoking isn't bad for you.


A ton of companies are investing in completing SDC R&D. They have assembled teams of some of the best robotic engineers available. Numerous top universities are also helping. This is akin to the moon landing effort in terms of investment and talent.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> The Nokia stuff is old news - like 2014 old news. You're not posting anything I don't know. I keep posting that it will take ~30 years for this technology to go mainstream - and get told that it's essentially happening right now.
> 
> But don't take my opinion:
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2015/10/15/the-road-to-self-driving-cars-a-timeline/ - estimate 2030
> ...


So what you're saying is none of your sources agree with you?


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## Hotep31 (Jan 24, 2015)

Slon said:


> I suspect that Uber will not be interested in owning the fleet of driverless cars. I think they rather like the idea of having someone else bear the burden of maintenance. You buy yourself a driverless car, you drive to work, and once you are there you send your car to drive for uber, then in the evening it comes to pick you up and take you home...
> 
> It's a nice fantasy - but currently driverless cars struggle with bad weather, get horribly confused by snow and I cannot imagine how they would easily deal with the pax never being at the pickup site or damaging the interior.
> 
> I don't see Uber being able to leverage driverless cars anytime soon. Driverless trucks maybe - highway routes are easy, driverless busses that go down predefined well established routes, sure - cars with NO driver to take control if something goes wrong? Not anytime soon.


you've obviously never drivin a truck. Highway routes are not easy,I often take county/state roads to get away from interstate traffic.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/01...ver-data-on-glitches-and-failures-to-the-dmv/

TL;DR; - Driver had to take over for the autopilot system 341 times in 424,000 miles traveled. That basically means the self driving car on average could barley do ~1,300 miles before running into an issue that it needed a human to fix.

We're a very long away from having a car that can drive itself without needing a driver to help it out.


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## 5 Star Guy (Nov 7, 2015)

Google just announced they need a lot of help, from partners. Ford just passed the snow test. Ford also said, which I mentioned that they need a standard system to map the roads, its not GPS or the pot holes, its knowing where the road is. The one factor here missing is AI good enough to put all of this together. A construction zone ahead vs. a kid in the street would probably give similar results without the AI and mapping.


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## Billy-Bob (Jan 11, 2016)

Slon said:


> TL;DR; - Driver had to take over for the autopilot system 341 times in 424,000 miles traveled. That basically means the self driving car on average could barley do ~1,300 miles before running into an issue that it needed a human to fix.
> 
> We're a very long away from having a car that can drive itself without needing a driver to help it out.


You have to assume, as with all tech development most of the issues occurred early on skewing the average upwards when we all know the results later in the test period would have been well below the average.

But anyway.......What's the average Uber trip? I'm guessing 5 miles max. So let's see; 5 /1,330=260 trips without a need for a driver. How many trips does the average Uber driver handle in a day; again let's say 5. 260/5= 52 days without an issue. Yep. Obvious total failure.


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

Billy-Bob said:


> You have to assume, as with all tech development most of the issues occurred early on skewing the average upwards when we all know the results later in the test period would have been well below the average.
> 
> But anyway.......What's the average Uber trip? I'm guessing 5 miles max. So let's see; 5 /1,330=260 trips without a need for a driver. How many trips does the average Uber driver handle in a day; again let's say 5. 260/5= 52 days without an issue. Yep. Obvious total failure.


Even if we say that they reduce the failure rate by 10 times, so it's 1 failure every 13k miles - would you really want to get into a car that will encounter a scenario it cannot handle which may result in an accident every 13k miles? I wouldn't. We're not talking about an annoyance or inconvenience like your PC crashing - this could be a deadly scenario.

There is a huge difference between a car that drive itself and you sit behind the wheel and make sure it doesn't screw up and a car that has NO driver at all. We may have one by 2030, but not the other.


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## Terminator (Nov 27, 2015)

TOO many personal insults have been removed.

Next member who shows any disrespect towards another.... Hasta La Vista.


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## 5 Star Guy (Nov 7, 2015)

There are already self driving buses around.


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## Juanitaeffi (Jan 13, 2016)

sidewazzz said:


> These driverless cars are driving under 35mph and can't navigate a real turn in real life situations. A lot od the crashes are happening due to the fact that oddly enough.... people/ drivers can't predict these cars because they are programmed to follow laws to the T.


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## Juanitaeffi (Jan 13, 2016)

Slon said:


> I suspect that Uber will not be interested in owning the fleet of driverless cars. I think they rather like the idea of having someone else bear the burden of maintenance. You buy yourself a driverless car, you drive to work, and once you are there you send your car to drive for uber, then in the evening it comes to pick you up and take you home...
> 
> It's a nice fantasy - but currently driverless cars struggle with bad weather, get horribly confused by snow and I cannot imagine how they would easily deal with the pax never being at the pickup site or damaging the interior.
> 
> I don't see Uber being able to leverage driverless cars anytime soon. Driverless trucks maybe - highway routes are easy, driverless busses that go down predefined well established routes, sure - cars with NO driver to take control if something goes wrong? Not anytime soon.


So are driverless car on the road now?


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## Slon (Dec 25, 2015)

Juanitaeffi said:


> So are driverless car on the road now?


Yes of course, in active testing - but there is a driver in the car making sure nothing goes wrong. That kind of level of automation isn't too hard to get.

The real issue appears when you remove the human entirely. Getting it to work right 99% of the time is easy. Getting it to work 99.99999% of the time isn't.


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## uberwerx (Dec 7, 2015)

> Yeah; that robot thing is just a fad. you know, kind of like flat screens, genome research, smart phones and that internet thingy. Next we'll have some idiot thinking drones will catch on.
> 
> Auto manufacturers are investing BILLIONS into autonomous technology. GM alone put $500M into Lyft last week to work on driverless technology together.


Hmm... while they're working on eliminating the drivers, how does eliminating the customer (riders) sound? I mean if no one is working, where do the riders come from? On the other hand those flying car thingys worked out pretty well huh? If we can discover the reason flying cars didn't catch on then we will have the answer for why driverless cars won't work, at least for now. I am being sarcastic about the flying cars because we all know why we don't have those yet, but the reason is the same. I can't have a flying car because of other drivers. Every driver has to be coordinated and drive or fly in a very similar manner. Can you imagine the all the flying cars having to slam on their brakes for a traffic jam? A flying car is an advantage when there are no other flying cars close to yours and conversely a driverless car is an advantage when all cars are driverless. But don't just listen to me listen to the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/t...erless-cars-fault-its-other-drivers.html?_r=0


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## EcoSLC (Sep 24, 2015)

SafeT said:


> Who wants to be in a driverless car on the highway going 65 mpg


I dunno, that sounds pretty eco-friendly


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Slon said:


> http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/01...ver-data-on-glitches-and-failures-to-the-dmv/
> 
> TL;DR; - Driver had to take over for the autopilot system 341 times in 424,000 miles traveled. That basically means the self driving car on average could barley do ~1,300 miles before running into an issue that it needed a human to fix.
> 
> We're a very long away from having a car that can drive itself without needing a driver to help it out.


Nah, it really doesn't mean that at all. Quite the opposite. The data is actually showing _amazing advancements_ over the 16 months. Your terms "had" and "human needed to fix" are way off what the actual report was saying.

First, and most important, each quarter the miles per disengagement increased significantly. This is an important fact because it shows impressive improvements over a short period of time which is an indicator of the exact opposite of your claim. They went from 785 miles per disengagement to 5,318 miles per quarter in just 16 months. A 677% improvement. If they can maintain that rate, they will be at hundreds of thousands of miles between disengagements by 2018. *The vast majority of these disengagements were precautionary in nature and not an actual event that would have resulted in an incident.
*
So, when Billy-Bob said:

"You have to assume, as with all tech development most of the issues occurred early on skewing the average upwards when we all know the results later in the test period would have been well below the average."

He was correct.

_We need to put this in the context of the actual purpose and Google encouraging disengagements to understand what they tell the engineers about the system._ The threshold is _not _safe operation, it's also smoothness of ride, flow of traffic, or simply being concerned about another person's behavior. Only 68 were over safety concerns and these do not nessecarily indicate an actual issue, just a perceived issue. They want these to happen. It's how they improve the system. They rerun the event in a simulator to see what would have happened had the driver not taken over and use that data to improve the system, which is the entire purpose of the testing. In only 13 of the events do they believe there would have been some kind of contact with something, two being traffic cones, had the driver not taken over. Of the 13, 10 were the fault of the SDC, and only 2 occurred in the last 7 months.

Here's the _REAL KICKER_, the further they get along, the less issues they have to deal with, so they will have all of their talent and resources focused on _fewer and fewer problems_. The rate of resolutions should logically accelerate as the process moves along.

*TLDR: What the actual report tells us, in context, is they are getting from the testing what they wanted, improving the systems very quickly, and made a huge leap in just 16 months.

*
Actual data:

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/cadmvdisengagereport-dec.2015.pdf


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberwerx said:


> Hmm... while they're working on eliminating the drivers, how does eliminating the customer (riders) sound? I mean if no one is working, where do the riders come from? On the other hand those flying car thingys worked out pretty well huh? If we can discover the reason flying cars didn't catch on then we will have the answer for why driverless cars won't work, at least for now. I am being sarcastic about the flying cars because we all know why we don't have those yet, but the reason is the same. I can't have a flying car because of other drivers. Every driver has to be coordinated and drive or fly in a very similar manner. Can you imagine the all the flying cars having to slam on their brakes for a traffic jam? A flying car is an advantage when there are no other flying cars close to yours and conversely a driverless car is an advantage when all cars are driverless. But don't just listen to me listen to the NYT. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/02/t...erless-cars-fault-its-other-drivers.html?_r=0


What's funniest about the article is the crash they keep talking about was from 7 years ago and was caused by two human drivers, one in the Google car and one in the other car, and had nothing to do with the SDC. The next is 5 years ago, and yep, it was the driver in the Google car, not the car. The "problem" with a 4 way stop incident where the car couldn't figure out when to go because other cars don't come to a full stop, was fixed, which we don't find out until the end of article. You do realise that's what the testing is for, right? Uncover issues and correct them?

"But Mr. Norman, from the design center in San Diego, after years of urging caution on driverless cars, now welcomes quick adoption..."


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## uberwerx (Dec 7, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> ..."But Mr. Norman, from the design center in San Diego, after years of urging caution on driverless cars, now welcomes quick adoption..."


I see the quick adoption as the only way SDC will work, and the biggest problem. We have to get rid of DriverOperatedCars first or there will be too much road rage from drivers like me trying to trip-up SDCs. Maybe we could have DriverNeedsAssistanceCars for people who don't know how to merge on the freeway when everyone is traveling 60mph, or give them a loud alarm if they are sitting at the green light too long that only 2 cars get through a light, or an alarm if they are approaching a red light, stop-sign or another car at too fast of a speed? Or we could just make the driving tests 100 questions again and retest every year for people over 65.


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