Driverless Cars

[prof fate]

Awesome info. I did not know to NOT charge if temps are at or below the freezing point of water.

So...elec cars come with heating elements to keep the battery above freezing I assume? At home I can plug it in (pita at times) but at work...parking lots...nope.

And here in western PA it gets below freezing every night for months in the winter, sometimes for days on end...

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Just read they are making chargers, FAST chargers - can charge a car at a rate of '20 miles per minute' the article said - so a 200 mile range would be 10 minute charge!


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Insurance agents will all tell you - HIT THE DEER! Swerve and hit something else is called reckless driving...unless you have the deer as a witniss of course.

 

[k0ua]

The cars or the "drivers"?

The ungulates. The Cervid's. This was in response to the deer operating their vehicles properly

 

[3930dave]

Update, from Phoenix.....

Robots on the road - how close is our driverless future? - BBC News

Rgds, D.

 

[Oaktree]

Update, from Phoenix.....

Robots on the road - how close is our driverless future? - BBC News

There was a special on transportation in America on CBS a few nights ago, one of the segments was on driverless cars. It was amazing what it could do, but the demo was under ideal conditions. The article you linked to underscored the big difference between that and real world conditions. I agree they're a long way off, if ever.

Curiously, will production models have all the roof mounted gear on them? Seems like snow could really wreak some havoc with them up here in the north.

 

[/pine]

The USPS Tests Out Self-Driving Trucks for Hauling Mail | WIRED

 

[Reg]

There was a special on transportation in America on CBS a few nights ago, one of the segments was on driverless cars. It was amazing what it could do, but the demo was under ideal conditions. The article you linked to underscored the big difference between that and real world conditions. I agree they're a long way off, if ever.

Curiously, will production models have all the roof mounted gear on them? Seems like snow could really wreak some havoc with them up here in the north.

At some point NO.

There is already some HUGE amount of "learning" (I hate to use that term in this context) by Tesla vehicles, both individually and collectively.
Unlike human guided vehicles they won't be "discovering" road features as they go along, they will likely be downloading very detailed (cm precision) and very up to date maps of the roads ahead.
Add to that the fact that MOST of our driving is very local and it becomes clear that within a very short time vehicles will "know" the way home and many details that humans miss or ignore - often to our peril, i.e. the developing pothole that was tiny yesterday can wreck your whole front end.
Much of that knowledge will have been gathered by other vehicles.

My crystal ball said so.

Bottom line; snow on the road won't matter, yellow lines won't need to be visible. Stop lines are ignored by humans anyway (-:

 

[3930dave]

Update today, pedestrian death in Phoenix....

Uber'''s self-driving operator charged over fatal crash - BBC News

Rgds, D.

 

[Reg]

Not too bad - from the perspective of 90 per day for driver'd cars.

(Rhetorical question) Why is this "news" anyway ?

 

[kenmbz]

Seem to have driverless cars in NJ, just see people doing everything but drive. When WaWa (local chain like 7-11) started selling food bowls, saw lots of people holding them in their lap or hands while eating. So must be automatic steering since they are doing 80 in the left lane.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Maybe someone with money to burn would put manikins in a driverless car and send them on a cross country vacation some day.