We Need To Stop Pretending That The Autonomous Car Is Imminent

[quinlanmw]

Am I the only one here wondering what happened to the OP's original topic of autonomous vehicles and why this thread immediately devolved into a political discussion of electric vehicles, taxes, and government subsidies?

Jeez, guys....

[Mikado463]

Originally Posted by quinlanmw

Am I the only one here wondering what happened to the OP's original topic of autonomous vehicles

I suppose so ........

[PHC1]

Not sure why the "autonomous" was mixed in with "electrification" of cars. Two totally different subjects.

At this point the future is pointing to the much safer mode of transportation and that is with the computers/AI doing the driving. If anyone actually doubts that this will be a much safer way to travel in a car, boat, bus, plane or even a train is simply missing the point that AI has already far exceeded the best skills of drivers and pilots and this has been proven over and over in simulations. A human mind, muscle memory and reaction time is no match for AI. The best fighter pilot could not beat AI which outsmarted him each time and shot him down time and time again. I think we can put that subject to rest. That's not to mention all the other human factors such as intoxication, distraction and sheer lack of common sense or lack of driving skills that costs others their lives.

Autonomy will happen. It has been happening and slowly evolving. It will not happen overnight and certainly it may not be an uninterrupted trip of getting into your vehicle, selecting a destination on your navigation and arriving there without human interaction just yet. There are many factors to work out still but implementation of such infrastructure is without a doubt in our future and it will certainly change the whole transportation aspect of both private and commercial road travel.

As to "electrification" looks like the immediate future holds some of that for us. Those in the know are predicting half the cars on the road in another 10 years will be electric/hybrid. In 20 years ALL new cars on the road will be running on energy other than fossil fuels. Could be electric, could be something else. My guess is it will be electric power and perhaps in some more distant future it will be other alternatives.

I doubt it will happen in my lifetime but the future I would have loved to see is traveling in the air in personal pods. It is already possible with all the drone technology that has been developed. This is not science fiction and it would have solved most of the single plane mode of travel on congested roads which are getting more diffucult to expand in crowded cities with nowhere to build them. Air travel or "vertical lanes" would accommodate much more traffic as the pods are traveling at dedicated altitudes or "sky lanes".

[jdandy]

Serge.......And one or more skilled hackers bringing the GPS system down, or even simply jamming it, would bring all this autonomous travel crashing, literally.

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Serge.......And one or more skilled hackers bringing the GPS system down, or even simply jamming it, would bring all this autonomous travel crashing, literally.

Indeed Dan. Such is the modern world of technology. Bringing down satellites will put us back almost into the dark ages as well with other aspects of our daily lives. That's the technological world we live in today. I don't think it stopped the progress when the horse and buggy skeptics expressed their concerns when they saw the horseless carriages appearing.

[audioguy3107]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Serge.......And one or more skilled hackers bringing the GPS system down, or even simply jamming it, would bring all this autonomous travel crashing, literally.

Plus guys, we’d all have to watch out for these guys.....word on the street is that they may be dangerous.

[Mikado463]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Serge.......And one or more skilled hackers bringing the GPS system down, or even simply jamming it, would bring all this autonomous travel crashing, literally.

one can only hope Dan that redundant measures are in place.

I believe Budweiser has been beta testing this with some of their trucks out west for the past year or two, anybody have any feedback on that ?

[PHC1]

Watch Daimler's Self Driving Truck Freightliner Inspiration in Nevada become the world´s first licensed autonomous heavy-duty truck allowed to use public roads. Forget the future this just happened today! Mercedes Self Driving Trucks are go with the Daimler's Freightliner Inspiration Truck!

https://youtu.be/HdSRUG4KTPA

[PHC1]

World's First Autonomous Delivery. 50,000 Budweiser beers...


https://youtu.be/sIlCR4eG8_o

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by JMAC

" The big problem here is that very few consumers are buying or planning to buy electric vehicles. Sure, we can point to the hundreds of thousands of preorders for Tesla’s Model 3, but even if they all get delivered over the next two years, they will represent a tiny single-digit percentage of total U.S. auto sales.

Throw in all the other electric vehicles from other carmakers, and the number still remains well below 5 percent. Why? In part because U.S. consumers are generally very concerned about getting stranded if the batteries run out. Rightly or wrongly, until we see nearly as many charging stations as we have gas stations, there will be reluctance on the part of car buyers to give up their gas-powered vehicles. (Of course, throw in the fact that there are multiple electric-car charging standards, and that charging “fill-ups” are measured in tens of minutes — or even hours — and you start to get a sense of the problem.)"

John.......Some other issues that cause me concern about electric vehicles are the inherent dangers posed by lithium-ion batteries from self ignition from overheating, explosive fire danger from shorting out during an accident, the hazardous materials spilled on the highways from catastrophic vehicle accidents, plus the added cost of special training and associated hazardous cleanup equipment and protective outfits to protect the cleanup crews, and the safe disposal of hazardous material from ruptured lithium batteries. These are all legitimate concerns that I think the electric vehicle buying public spends little to no time considering. Who will pay for this, just owners of electric vehicles? I think not.

The same question of who will pay also applies to upgrading and outfitting the national electric grid and power generation facilities (mostly fossil fuel generated electricity) with bigger generation facilities and far more robust power distribution to support the charging infrastructure necessary to continuously charge millions of electric vehicles. Were we to have 50% of the vehicles on the road in the United States suddenly become electric vehicles tomorrow our present power distribution would fail when all these electric car owners begin demanding to charge their cars daily, even multiple times daily. At any given moment the electric demand would be astronomical while the power companies' ability to supply that demand would collapse. This inability to meet those energy demands would impact everyone at home, work, in factories, hospitals, traffic control, security, and more. This nation's electrical infrastructure is not ready, nor will it be ready for that kind of energy consumption for many years to come. I ask again, who will pay to upgrade the grids and generation capacity? Will it be a tax on electric car sales, or will the general public be forced to ante up for services thay may or may not intend to consume? None of this touches on the enormous electrical demands that go into the manufacturing of the large lithium-ion battery cells. A major ramp up of lithium-ion battery cell production to power all these electric vehicles will further strain an insufficient power grid.

It's a fantasy to dupe buyers into believing their electric cars are clean. Virtue signalling about one's environmental sensitivity and activism to friends and acquaintances by pointing at your Prius, Leaf, or Tesla car doesn't negate the fact that it takes fossil fuel or nuclear energy (another huge pollution concern) to bring electrical energy to your garage charger or roadside charging station. Electric cars are not cleaning the air. They are simply shifting the pollution somewhere else, always away from where electric car owners do not notice it from their driveway.

I'm not saying the concept of vehicles that require no fossil fuel to operate is a bad idea. It's a great idea. Unfortunately, I believe the present plan is flawed and the hazards are being ignored and covered up, and the ultimate costs being hidden from general view.