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Autonomous vehicles are in our future. We will continue to move there. At the present time they are not perfect. Vehicles with drivers still get into accidents. The big question is which are safer.

If the streets only had autonomous vehicles, then I'd say autonomous vehicles would be the safer choice. They'd follow the rules of the road. The only uncertainty is how they deal with pedestrians, especially in crowded areas.

I think the uncertainty of human behavior is what makes the near-term success of autonomous vehicles skeptical. Imagine testing these cars in NYC. You're going to have all kinds of accidents all over the place.
 
Tesla doesn't have any financial problems. Their breakeven point for the Model 3 is somewhere between 2500 and 3500 per week = 32K-45K per quarter. They only delivered 18K last quarter, so obviously were in the hole. This quarter, they're expected to manage over 50K, so should have a profit (~4 weeks until they give an official number of deliveries, and ~8 weeks until the quarterly financial earnings report.)

Even if they did have financial problems, they wouldn't have a problem raising money, and if they did, they'd be bought by Apple or Google, and very little would change other than Tesla's dependency on capital.

There's no universe where Tesla doesn't exist in 3 years.

It's only a dream that Apple or Google would buy Tesla.

As for it's finances, Musk announced he was going to take the company private, only one reason for that, then he was 'persuaded' not to 3 days ago.. that says a hell of a lot more then any figures you pull up.

He better hope the Model 3 bumper stops falling off in the wet too:

http://theblemish.com/2018/08/peopl...tesla-model-3s-are-falling-apart-in-the-rain/

http://www.autoblog.com/2018/08/13/tesla-model-3-loses-bumper-rain/?guccounter=1

http://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/poor-build-quality

http://www.greencarreports.com/news...lity-is-terrible-but-does-it-matter-to-buyers
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Your comment embodies the epitome of human fear mongering. Autonomous vehicles are already statistically safer than human drivers, and they’re only going to get safer. The Apple vehicle wasn’t even at fault. But you didn’t even bother to read the article; you just instantly went on an anti-autonomous vehicle rant based on your own unfounded biased assumptions.

Trend of autonomous vehicles crashing? Putting road users at risk? What on earth have you been smoking that makes you ignorant to the fact humans crash all the time putting other human lives at risk?

FALSE!!!! Their are NO statistics that claim self driving cars are safer, because their are NO self driving cars owned by the public.
And let me know when a robot car doesn't run over someone that steps out in front of them... they don't seem to be doing to well at that, also let me know when a robot lacking AI has to follow rules of code it's programmed with, which wont work with human drivers all around. The public will not buy them and it will fail.
 
I'm just glad they are testing their autonomous cars in the Bay Area where the drivers are quite aggressive and often don't follow the "rules of the road", on par with Boston and NYC. Get it right here and it will work anywhere in the US, I suspect. Next real test would be Mexico or India.
 
That’s the problem with self driving cars. They are made to follow rules. Hence the Apple autonomous car going less than 1 mph to find a gap to merge into another lane. Everyone knows you gotta stick your nose into the other lane and force yourself in there!


It obviously wasn't a 1MPH merge onto a freeway. It had come to a stop and then as it started out it was rear ended by an inattentive driver.
 
Here's the non-clickbait headline..."Nissan leaf crashes into Apple autonomous vehicle"?

Shouldn't that be:

"Idiot driver in a Nissan leaf crashes into Apple autonomous vehicle."

How on earth can someone going 15 mph rear-end another vehicle - even if it's not moving - unless they're not paying attention?
 
In driving school, you learn that the vehicle who rear ends another is at fault no matter what. If you hit someone, you get a ticket for following too closely. There are only two ways to rear end someone -- following too closely, or being distracted and not hitting the brake fast enough.

The article said the Apple car was waiting for a gap in highway traffic while trying to merge. You can't get onto the highway by putting your car inside of another car, that's not how physics work; you have to wait for a gap.

People are on their phones too much these days. The driver of the Leaf was probably texting.

i dont think this is true because if someone pulls in front of you and slams on the brakes i would hope they are in fault for driving recklessly
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Shouldn't that be:

"Idiot driver in a Nissan leaf crashes into Apple autonomous vehicle."

How on earth can someone going 15 mph rear-end another vehicle - even if it's not moving - unless they're not paying attention?
im guessing they were looking for an opening to merge and they didnt expect the car in front to just stop when merging onto a highway
 
It's only a dream that Apple or Google would buy Tesla.

As for it's finances, Musk announced he was going to take the company private, only one reason for that, then he was 'persuaded' not to 3 days ago.. that says a hell of a lot more then any figures you pull up.

He better hope the Model 3 bumper stops falling off in the wet too:

http://theblemish.com/2018/08/peopl...tesla-model-3s-are-falling-apart-in-the-rain/

http://www.autoblog.com/2018/08/13/tesla-model-3-loses-bumper-rain/?guccounter=1

http://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/poor-build-quality

http://www.greencarreports.com/news...lity-is-terrible-but-does-it-matter-to-buyers
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FALSE!!!! Their are NO statistics that claim self driving cars are safer, because their are NO self driving cars owned by the public.
And let me know when a robot car doesn't run over someone that steps out in front of them... they don't seem to be doing to well at that, also let me know when a robot lacking AI has to follow rules of code it's programmed with, which wont work with human drivers all around. The public will not buy them and it will fail.


Facts march on independent of your feelings. We have terrific stats on accidents because collection is generally mandated by law, and insurance companies need to routinely study accident rates to determine insurance rates and losses. We know, for example, that human error is responsible for about 95% of all accidents, the rest being equipment, road design, hazards,weather, etc. Humans also killing an astonishing 35-40K people a year in car accidents. Millions of miles have now been driven by autonomous vehicles and the accident rate is extraordinarily low as expected when human error is largely eliminated.

Insurance companies have already seen a significant drop off in accidents in cars with features like automatic braking.The one the article discusses wouldn't have happened had the driver that was following too close or inattentive had collision avoidance technology on their vehicle.Here's one study that shows a 40% drop in rear end accidents.

http://www.autonews.com/article/201...ing-reduces-rear-end-crashes-iihs-study-finds

Indeed, insurance companies have already begun planning for the huge reduction in the insurance industry with the resulting reduction in claims that will result as autonomous and semi-automonous vehicles become prevalent. Many insurance companies are now offering reduction in premiums for automatic braking.

One of the likely future developments is that many insurance companies may refuse to insure or charge very high premiums to insure vehicles that aren't autonomous because of the huge difference in accident rates.
 
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i dont think this is true because if someone pulls in front of you and slams on the brakes i would hope they are in fault for driving recklessly
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im guessing they were looking for an opening to merge and they didnt expect the car in front to just stop when merging onto a highway

Thankfully I live in Washington State where the person entering the highway has the right of way. No need to stop. Drivers on the highway are obligated to make an opening for the merging vehicle. I have a couple of friends who learned that $250+ ticket the hard way.
 
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i dont think this is true because if someone pulls in front of you and slams on the brakes i would hope they are in fault for driving recklessly
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im guessing they were looking for an opening to merge and they didnt expect the car in front to just stop when merging onto a highway
There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that have been at fault in a rear-ended accident and those that haven't.
Once you've rear-ended another vehicle, you learn, it does no good to check for a clearance to merge if your lane ahead is not yet clear. It's really quite binary. You have to crawl before you can walk, walk before you run, and the runway must be clear before you take off.
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Thankfully I live in Washington State where the person entering the highway has the right of way. No need to stop. Drivers on the highway are obligated to make an opening for the merging vehicle. I have a couple of friends who learned that $250+ ticket the hard way.
I want to see the Washington State Vehicle Code section describing the obligation and onus of merging traffic versus traffic established in the roadway.
 
Thankfully I live in Washington State where the person entering the highway has the right of way. No need to stop. Drivers on the highway are obligated to make an opening for the merging vehicle. I have a couple of friends who learned that $250+ ticket the hard way.


Sorry, you have bad information. I wouldn't normally weigh in, but this is a safety issue and we need to stop fake news from spreading. I used to live there. Drivers entering the freeway in Washington are like most every other state, they must yield to the oncoming cars. That's a basic rule of the road throughout the United States.

“The responsibility to safely merge into traffic from an on-ramp lies with the driver of the merging vehicle,” said Trooper Guy Gill, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol. “Traffic on the freeway has the right of way. There is no law that requires a driver occupying the right lane on the freeway to move over, slow down or take any other action to let a merging vehicle on the freeway.”

Two Washington statutes come into play, said Tacoma attorney Paul Landry, The News Tribune’s traffic consultant.

“First, under RCW 46.61.195, all highways are designated as arterials, and so the driver on the arterial is the favored driver,” Landry said. “Then, under RCW 46.61.190, the vehicle entering the arterial must yield the right of way to the vehicle which is already on the arterial.”
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There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that have been at fault in a rear-ended accident and those that haven't.
Once you've rear-ended another vehicle, you learn, it does no good to check for a clearance to merge if your lane ahead is not yet clear. It's really quite binary. You have to crawl before you can walk, walk before you run, and the runway must be clear before you take off.
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I want to see the Washington State Vehicle Code section describing the obligation and onus of merging traffic versus traffic established in the roadway.


See post above. His friends were spreading fake news.
 
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Facts march on independent of your feelings. We have terrific stats on accidents because collection is generally mandated by law, and insurance companies need to routinely study accident rates to determine insurance rates and losses. We know, for example, that human error is responsible for about 95% of all accidents, the rest being equipment, road design, hazards,weather, etc. Humans also killing an astonishing 35-40K people a year in car accidents. Millions of miles have now been driven by autonomous vehicles and the accident rate is extraordinarily low as expected when human error is largely eliminated.

Insurance companies have already seen a significant drop off in accidents in cars with features like automatic braking.The one the article discusses wouldn't have happened had the driver that was following too close or inattentive had collision avoidance technology on their vehicle.Here's one study that shows a 40% drop in rear end accidents.

http://www.autonews.com/article/201...ing-reduces-rear-end-crashes-iihs-study-finds

Indeed, insurance companies have already begun planning for the huge reduction in the insurance industry with the resulting reduction in claims that will result as autonomous and semi-automonous vehicles become prevalent. Many insurance companies are now offering reduction in premiums for automatic braking.

One of the likely future developments is that many insurance companies may refuse to insure or charge very high premiums to insure vehicles that aren't autonomous because of the huge difference in accident rates.

Millions of miles? Prove it, oh and yet again, no one in the public domain owns a self driving car.. and your also looking at one state, compared to how many vehicles, globally, are on the planet and driven, what’s the percentage of ‘test self driving vehicles’? 0.0007%? Or something just as low.
And yet you use it as an excuse to praise the fact they haven’t killed, many, people, because I know of at least one person killed by a test vehicle on public roads.

I’m not discussing anymore, because I firmly believe self driving cars will flume, maybe in the cities of America they’ll be popular, but I doubt elsewhere in the world they will be as much.
And it would take global government legislation to course people to accept any insurance company changes. So that’s a flawed argument also. Stop looking at one state or even country, think globally.

And considering other Mac news sites have had plenty of stories today, the MacRumors staff have gone on holiday? Considering this stories been at the top of the front page since Friday....
 
I don't know the US rules, but in other countries _the law_ says that at a certain time, you can assume that the light is defective and can go. Very carefully, because you must assume that traffic from the left and right have a continuous green light and don't expect that they have to stop.

Thanks for that bit of info.
I was not aware there was an actual specific law related to it, just common sense :)

On the law topic, it will be interesting to see how the cars are programmed to break the law in certain situations.
Mounting the pavement, another example, to get around something.

The rules humans apply and understand regards flashing headlights being another.
 
I think some people aren’t reading the article. The Apple car did nothing wrong. It was the Nissan Leaf that collided into the rear because it was following too closely. So if you were claiming injuries while driving the Nissan Leaf, you’re on your own!
Everyone read the article but they are all making some fun of it. The truth is, this should not even be news.
 
Millions of miles? Prove it, oh and yet again, no one in the public domain owns a self driving car.. and your also looking at one state, compared to how many vehicles, globally, are on the planet and driven, what’s the percentage of ‘test self driving vehicles’? 0.0007%? Or something just as low.
And yet you use it as an excuse to praise the fact they haven’t killed, many, people, because I know of at least one person killed by a test vehicle on public roads.

I’m not discussing anymore, because I firmly believe self driving cars will flume, maybe in the cities of America they’ll be popular, but I doubt elsewhere in the world they will be as much.
And it would take global government legislation to course people to accept any insurance company changes. So that’s a flawed argument also. Stop looking at one state or even country, think globally.

And considering other Mac news sites have had plenty of stories today, the MacRumors staff have gone on holiday? Considering this stories been at the top of the front page since Friday....


"Prove it." LOL. Do some basic internet research. Once again, as they say, facts don't care about your feelings. Apple alone with their 60 or so self-driving vehicles is putting tens of thousands of miles a week on these cars. Google is logging 25K per day and has over 8 million miles. More needs to be done, but there is already many millions of miles driven on actual roads.

You also are confused about how insurance companies set rates. There's no need for "global government legislation," nor is there a global government authority for such things (not yet anyways!). Insurance companies set your rates based on their expected pay outs and the rate of return they need to make on the money they take in. Reducing human involvement has already shown to reduce accidents, that's why you can now get a discount from many companies for having features such as automatic braking since they know they will experience fewer claims for rear ending of other cars if you have this technology.
 
In driving school, you learn that the vehicle who rear ends another is at fault no matter what. If you hit someone, you get a ticket for following too closely. There are only two ways to rear end someone -- following too closely, or being distracted and not hitting the brake fast enough.

You're right about all three...even though you should be wrong about automatically getting the ticket for following too closely.

I had to deal with a traffic court matter where the client rear ended another car on the the highway. The car in front had slammed on their brakes, the client rear-ended them, and the idiot cop gave the client a ticket for following too closely.

Court day came, the driver from the car in front said the car in front of her slowed down, she slammed on her brakes, and about 4 seconds later she was hit from behind by the client.

The defence was that if it took 4 seconds to hit, the client clearly wasn't following too closely and the ticket should have been for careless driving. The ticket was thrown out.
 
How on earth can someone going 15 mph rear-end another vehicle - even if it's not moving - unless they're not paying attention?
Well, take a look at that immense intimidating facade of Titan camera’s
Leaf-man probably felt transferred into some Big-Brother or stuntman show and was too paralyzed to break
 
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No-one driving a car, or a self-driving car should ever be in a merge lane at 1mph trying to merge into traffic. That's just plain negligent.
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Sorry, you have bad information. I wouldn't normally weigh in, but this is a safety issue and we need to stop fake news from spreading. I used to live there. Drivers entering the freeway in Washington are like most every other state, they must yield to the oncoming cars. That's a basic rule of the road throughout the United States.

“The responsibility to safely merge into traffic from an on-ramp lies with the driver of the merging vehicle,” said Trooper Guy Gill, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol. “Traffic on the freeway has the right of way. There is no law that requires a driver occupying the right lane on the freeway to move over, slow down or take any other action to let a merging vehicle on the freeway.”

Two Washington statutes come into play, said Tacoma attorney Paul Landry, The News Tribune’s traffic consultant.

“First, under RCW 46.61.195, all highways are designated as arterials, and so the driver on the arterial is the favored driver,” Landry said. “Then, under RCW 46.61.190, the vehicle entering the arterial must yield the right of way to the vehicle which is already on the arterial.”
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See post above. His friends were spreading fake news.

It's a common courtesy when driving that you create gaps when you're on the freeway etc. to allow traffic to merge with you.
 
Saw one of these self driving cars on the freeway (Apple I believe?) yesterday was shocked to see people driving in such a way to antagonize the vehicle intentionally. The person behind was inches off their bumper. I guess some people like to see the world burn.
perhaps it was another apple employee testing its abilities?
 
No-one driving a car, or a self-driving car should ever be in a merge lane at 1mph trying to merge into traffic. That's just plain negligent.
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It's a common courtesy when driving that you create gaps when you're on the freeway etc. to allow traffic to merge with you.


Of course it's common courtesy. That wasn't the point. The point was he claimed it was the law in Washington State when nothing was further from the truth. Just like it wasn't true that the Apple car was trying to merge at 1MPH. Obviously the Apple car was just starting out when rear ended.
 
Unlike 99.99% of the posters here, I have driven the Kifer & Lawrence intersection about 1,000 times in my life, along with other similar intersections along Lawrence and Central Expy. If I wanted to I could cause the car behind me to read-end me about 50% of the time just by braking after the driver behind assumed I was accelerating onto the expressway. The problem with these merges is that the driver needs to look behind their shoulder to decide to yield, which takes their eyes off the car in front, which can cause collision if the car in front brakes.

With humans I can guess behavior 99% of the time, but with self-driving cars, it's a different situation. SDCs have sensors all around, so they can make a decision at a different point, which leads to problems with humans who are accustomed to interacting with humans. I want to see the dashcam video to see who is responsible.
 
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