Driverless Cars

[3930dave]

Please watch this & decide for Yourself.

Tony Seba: Clean Disruption - Energy & Transportation - YouTube

Having lived through (and worked within) a few business and tech inflection points, I agree with some of what he said. Urban adoption rates for autonomous EVs (Uber fleets) will be fast.

TBN'ers who pick up groceries with 1 ton trucks, a bit slower.....

Biggest hurdle is not tech, but regulatory. Can't imagine that the US govt is in a big hurry to wreck both the auto and oil industry, simultaneously.

Rgds, D.

 

[/pine]

Having lived through (and worked within) a few business and tech inflection points, I agree with some of what he said. Urban adoption rates for autonomous EVs (Uber fleets) will be fast.

TBN'ers who pick up groceries with 1 ton trucks, a bit slower.....

Biggest hurdle is not tech, but regulatory. Can't imagine that the US govt is in a big hurry to wreck both the auto and oil industry, simultaneously.

Rgds, D.

The oil/gas industry is here to stay...they're not going anywhere ever...they may go through some transformations but recycling only offers so much...Technology is leaning towards replacing iron and steel with carbon and other fiber materials that are stronger and lighter...most are derived from crude, coal or gas feedstocks...

The key is improving the synthesis methods by reducing the energy required and finding ways to neutralize green house gas emissions in the processes...

 

[rd_macgregor]

I wonder what the insurance industry thinks of all this. Assigning responsibility when accidents (inevitably!) occur may be a nightmare...the police will need to get a lot more sophisticated, too. Car chase videos may look a lot different in 10 or 15 years...or maybe all vehicles will have some sort of emergency master override by then that lets the authorities shut down an errant vehicle.

 

[cqaigy2]

And people aren't getting better at handling their vehicles, so what happens when the car "hands" the wheel back to the driver? Not a tech problem, but one that tech will be expected to fix, because the cost of training to handle the vehicle effectively will be high.

 

[oosik]

What will we be expected to do when - riding in your driverless car - error code- 1721 flashes on the video monitor in BIG RED FLASHING LETTERS. Remember - you are buckled up and unable to bend over and kiss it goodbye.

How is the driverless/driver controlled scenario going to play out. I see road rage at its max.

Somehow I don't see the major oil companies taking the electric car revolution lying down.

Interesting times are on the horizon..........

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I wonder what the insurance industry thinks of all this. Assigning responsibility when accidents (inevitably!) occur may be a nightmare...the police will need to get a lot more sophisticated, too. Car chase videos may look a lot different in 10 or 15 years...or maybe all vehicles will have some sort of emergency master override by then that lets the authorities shut down an errant vehicle.

I think as an industry it will be a boon for insurance.

Driverless cars won't be allowed on the roads until they are significantly safer than human drivers. Which means overall fewer accidents, and smaller payouts by insurance companies.
There will be some interesting times while the insurance companies figure out whose company pays in particular cases, but overall they're going to be paying out so much less that it won't be hard to figure out.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

What will we be expected to do when - riding in your driverless car - error code- 1721 flashes on the video monitor in BIG RED FLASHING LETTERS. Remember - you are buckled up and unable to bend over and kiss it goodbye.

How is the driverless/driver controlled scenario going to play out. I see road rage at its max.

Somehow I don't see the major oil companies taking the electric car revolution lying down.

Interesting times are on the horizon..........

What do you do today when you're driving and the engine quits?

Do you realize that in today's cars, when you step on the gas you're not controlling the engine, you're sending a signal to a computer that controls the engine? And when you step on the brakes, you're sending a signal to the computer that controls the brakes? And it's been that way for about 30 years?

 

[3930dave]

And people aren't getting better at handling their vehicles, so what happens when the car "hands" the wheel back to the driver?

There's a good, albeit more complex, leading example of this situation. In the last 20 years, there's been concern growing in aviation, as avoidable accidents and crashes are occurring when pilots have to intervene when automatic systems fail or act up. Those situations are more complex than most on-road incidents, but aviation personnel also go through much more extensive training, so I see a good parallel with autonomous cars.....

2030..... you're heading through a Winter storm, and sensor arrays go down on your Tesla Z..... let's see how fast (and more importantly, successfully....) you can add to your total of 12 hours of hands-on driving time......

By then, available cars will probably be Level5.... those won't have human useable controls in 'em......

Rgds, D.

 

[3930dave]

...or maybe all vehicles will have some sort of emergency master override by then that lets the authorities shut down an errant vehicle.

Onstar could do that, at least on certain vehicles, some time back....

Rgds, D

 

[aczlan]

Onstar could do that, at least on certain vehicles, some time back....
Rgds, D

Given that the new Onstar app can let you remote start your car from your phone, I would be surprised if any Onstar equipped vehicle that still talks to the cell network COULDNT do that.

Aaron Z