Apple's Automobile Project Said to Include Self-Driving Cars

[MacsRgr8]

I know this would save lives, but it's also sad. There's a whole culture around cars and driving that will be lost when his eventually goes mainstream. I really like driving myself.

Indeed.
Sames goes for the whole "drive electric" discussion. Internal combustion engines are raw and sound cool (well... the nice V8 ones etc.) Imagine electric car racing...

Driving electric seems "green" but it's only replacing the issue. The power needed to charge all those batteries... where does that come from? Yep, from the usual pollution power plants.
Besides... what about having to scrap an electric car... the toxic waste by all those batteries.... yuk.

IMHO, driving electric is the future, BUT the true solution lies in the way the battery-power is charged.
I soooooo hope that Apple has the answer there....

 

[gnasher729]

Scenario.

You are sitting in your driverless car, 30 mph.
A dog barks loudly and the child jumps out into the road just yards in front of you, not enough time to stop.

Simple. First, it never happens. It is a scenario that you made up. If anyone here on MacRumors has ever in their life seen a child jump into the road because a dog barked loudly, they should tell us.

Second, if either the child was visible and the dog was visible, or if the view was obstructed, and there was oncoming traffic making it impossible to do an evasive manoeuvre, then 30mph is too fast, so the driverless car would go slower. I would go slower as well.

Third, the child's chances are better with an instant reaction by a driverless car than with a slow reaction of human driver.

Fourth, there is no moral dilemma. You mention several other people who are behaving as they should, and one (child) who isn't. It's obvious that your driverless car isn't going to hurt anyone who is behaving correctly. Tough for the child, but if you jump into the way of a car, the outcome is nobody else's fault.

 

[8281]

Tesla only makes expensive premium cars and people have assumed they'd make a car with this tech for the masses but Musk has shrugged off this notion, leaving that task to others.

Who? So far, no other car company I know of has taken Musk up on his offer to use this tech. Instead, they have been wasting their time developing their own systems, which, so far, have limited appeal and limited range, and perhaps too high of a price, and none of them have auto-pilot (limited assistance, not fully self-driving).

Musk hasn't "shrugged off that notion" at all. Tesla announced a lower-priced model around $35,000 some time ago, and Audi already has a functioning self-driving prototype: http://wot.motortrend.com/1501_self_driving_audi_a7_concept_to_drive_550_miles_2015_ces_show.html

In fact, they have a heavily modified, autonomous RS 7 that can complete hot laps within one - two seconds of professional drivers, even with all the additional electronics. And once Audi gets it, then everything VW owns will get the technology.

And, to be honest, you wouldn't know if another manufacturer has used Tesla's patents for years. Vehicle development takes a very long time.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Let's think what the self-driving vehicle will do for those that are blind. While self-driving cars would be a nice luxury for most of us, it's a life changer for those that are vision impaired.

Everything I have ever owned computerized has had a glitch at one time or another and required a restart or an update. Sort of scary to strap yourself in and put total trust into the computer without having the ability to take over if something goes wrong. Now there are embedded computers in aircraft, etc. that are extremely reliable, but they are very expensive and even in those cases there is still a pilot that must take over if they malfunction. I know a person who is a pilot and he will tell you there has to be someone monitoring the systems at all times and be prepared to manually fly the plane because things do go wrong.

 

[AngerDanger]

That has to be the cutest ****ing car I've ever seen…

 

[Solomani]

Real Life driving, is not like a computer game.

If all roads were scanned all the time in real time.
Every item was in a database with it's location.
Every living creature was being scanned at all times.
Road surfaces, and every other aspect was also being scanned THEN one could be pretty sure all would be safe.

But mixing in computer controlled cars, and humans/animals, and any unknown situation is asking a LOT.

On WIDE open freeways/Motorways, then sure.

Small busy city streets? weaving in and out of pedestrians and around cars making unexpected manoeuvres?

Will Google and Apple pay up billions once the first few pedestrians become accidental roadkills from these self-driving cars? It's only a matter of time. The lawyers must be salivating.

 

[bushman4]

These rumors just feed off each other with one source citing the other source and vice versa
Perhsps Apple is doing some mapping or a car related device. But doubtful it's a self driving car

 

[Keirasplace]

Will Google and Apple pay up billions once the first few pedestrians become accidental roadkills from these self-driving cars? It's only a matter of time. The lawyers must be salivating.

So, I'm guessing lawyers salivate when a plane goes down because of some mechanical or software issue.. Or are they regulations, rules, that limit liability? What about using a car and the damn tire breaks, hey lets just sue someone... Well, no, you can't there are limits to liability there too.

People die all the time in stupid accidents, fewer people will die because of those cats, but you can't stop everything.

If the driving car hits a kid when a normal human could have stopped, maybe you'd have a point. But, if no one could have stopped on time, you do not.

 

[ravenvii]

All the people afraid of the advent of the self-driving cars are so cute, believing that humans have better reaction times and make less mistakes than a computer does.

Remember how people used to think horses are better than cars? I'm sure they raised the same "concerns".

But the cars came, and the horses went, all the same.

 

[subsonix]

All the people afraid of the advent of the self-driving cars are so cute, believing that humans have better reaction times and make less mistakes than a computer does.

Making a computer that can drive a car is not an easy problem to solve, it's been actively researched for several decades by all major car companies.

Remember how people used to think horses are better than cars?

No.

 

[doelcm82]

So, I'm guessing lawyers salivate when a plane goes down because of some mechanical or software issue.. Or are they regulations, rules, that limit liability? What about using a car and the damn tire breaks, hey lets just sue someone... Well, no, you can't there are limits to liability there too.

People die all the time in stupid accidents, fewer people will die because of those cats, but you can't stop everything.

If the driving car hits a kid when a normal human could have stopped, maybe you'd have a point. But, if no one could have stopped on time, you do not.

Also, remember that all those sensors that tell the car about obstacles, traffic, and other potential dangers will also be keeping a record. If the car is driving at a safe speed and the actions of a human driver or pedestrian cause a situation where a collision is unavoidable, then all the data the car collected about the situation will be brought into the courtroom.

The lawyers will try to get the car's data suppressed: "Who are you going to believe--a bunch of consistent data from a black box-- or the word of my "earwitness" from two blocks away who swears she heard the car's tires screeching a full second and a half before the data shows the car applying the brakes?"

 

[Keirasplace]

Making a computer that can drive a car is not an easy problem to solve, it's been actively researched for several decades by all major car companies. No.

Computers are 1000000 times quicker per $1 spent since 1980, memory is 100000 times cheaper per $1 spent, storage is 10000000 times cheaper per $1 spent, CCDs are million times cheaper (more precise and larger), networks millions of time faster per $1 spent, lidar's are hundreds of times cheaper than in 1980. Dozens of different sensors didn't exist decades ago; most cars had no assist at all 15 years ago.

So, what is your point?

It took 10 years and one billion dollars to sequence the first genome and now you can do the whole thing for close to $1000. So, is this a harder nut to crack them self-driving?

I find it kind of bizarre this attachment to the quaint notion that US, the mega crappy humans, are actually good at driving,... Better than a machine which can multitask dozens of different things without distraction and literally has eyes behind its head (and can see two direction at once1).

 

[DakotaGuy]

All the people afraid of the advent of the self-driving cars are so cute, believing that humans have better reaction times and make less mistakes than a computer does.

Remember how people used to think horses are better than cars? I'm sure they raised the same "concerns".

But the cars came, and the horses went, all the same.

Pretty sure you can still ride a horse if you so choose. Not many make that choice anymore unless your on a ranch or a trail ride, but still it's available. I just want the choice so I can still have fun driving if I so choose. I understand there are few younger people who are auto enthusiasts or even enjoy driving. Many in the younger generation view a car as an appliance, but for some of us having a nice car, truck or SUV with good handling and performance and enjoying it is a big part of our lives.

If you don't get a smile when you stomp on it and see the tach jump up and down as you go through the gears... Or get a chance to "kick it down" to pass someone... Or enjoy feeling your car handle through a twisty mountain road... then yes you will really enjoy pushing the button and going along for a boring ride.

The automakers will have to find new ways to differentiate product because performance and handling won't matter anymore. A Chevy will accelerate and handle exactly as a BWM will with the pre-determined limits set for all operation.

 

[subsonix]

Computers are 1000000 times quicker per $1 spent since 1980, memory is 100000 times cheaper per $1 spent, storage is 10000000 times cheaper per $1 spent, CCDs are million times cheaper (more precise and larger), networks millions of time faster per $1 spent, lidar's are hundreds of times cheaper than in 1980. Dozens of different sensors didn't exist decades ago; most cars had no assist at all 15 years ago.

So, what is your point?

The biggest problem is not, price or computing power, but to give a computer cognitive abilities. It's a research field closely related to artificial intelligence.

It took 10 years and one billion dollars to sequence the first genome and now you can do the whole thing for close to $1000. So, is this a harder nut to crack them self-driving?

It's a different kind of nut to crack, let me put it that way.

I find it kind of bizarre this attachment to the quaint notion that US, the mega crappy humans, are actually good at driving,... Better than a machine which can multitask dozens of different things without distraction and literally has eyes behind its head (and can see two direction at once1).

Have you tried to reason with a computer? Computers are particularly good at computations and dealing with large amounts of data, given that they are explicitly told what to do. The problem with AI, or any task where the computer is asked to learn, adapt and make judgement on the environment by itself are hard problems.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Have you tried to reason with a computer? Computers are particularly good at computations and dealing with large amounts of data, given that they are explicitly told what to do. The problem with AI, or any task where the computer is asked to learn, adapt and make judgement on the environment by itself are hard problems.

Well Dave tried to reason with the HAL 9000, but it didn't go very well.

 

[Rettun1]

Indeed.
Driving electric seems "green" but it's only replacing the issue. The power needed to charge all those batteries... where does that come from? Yep, from the usual pollution power plants.
Besides... what about having to scrap an electric car... the toxic waste by all those batteries.... yuk.

You should remember that Apple is making a huge investment in solar panels to power 100% of its power for California. And wind isn't even the only option, but it's our most developed renewable tech. Once we can fully harness wind, wave, tide, and geothermal energies, power will not be a problem. The infrastructure to fully support electric vehicles will be there in 20 years I think

 

[apolloa]

Oh I'm aware they are testing them under carefully supervised conditions, and with drivers ready to snatch control in an instant.
And in the UK we have on special new areas made for them.

I'm not saying you can't make something that seems to be ok in many situations. The problem I think is the media as got wind of this, and have taken 2+2 and make 8 from it.

Driverless cars mixed in with normal daily traffic on normal roads, not WIDE open American roads, with other drivers and people all milling around crossing the road at any time, anywhere, etc etc, is the type of thing that needs to be either not done, or perfect.

Not too bad is not good enough.

A bit like a plane, it either does not fly, or it flies perfectly as we've worked out flying. Crashing a bit would not be tolerated.

There is no problem with the devices as such.
The problem will be the Law and Humans acceptance of driverless car accidents.

If we as humans can accept that accidents will happen, and there is no one we can blame then we can have them.
At the moment, we have the easy target to blame. The driver

If we are taking the driver away, either we will blame the company that makes the car, and demand to know why the car did what it did.

Or we are just going to have to accept accidents happen and there is no one to blame and claim against.

Just remember, someone's daughter will get driven into and killed by a computer controlled car and they are going to want to know why the computer decided driving into their daughter was the best decision.

They could argue, why did the car not drive the other way, and the company will have to explain how their software decided what it did was for the best.

Is self preservation the number 1 priority of the software?

Scenario.

You are sitting in your driverless car, 30 mph.
A dog barks loudly and the child jumps out into the road just yards in front of you, not enough time to stop.

1: Your car can apply the brakes in a straight line, but it's calculated it will not stop in time, and has recognised it's a small human, but will hit it, at say 20mph. But you and the car will be safe.

2: It could steer evasively to the left, but there is an adult on the pavement it would hit if it did that movement and a wall it may hit also. Child would be safe, you might be safe depending on the wall, Adult would get hit.

3: It could steer to the right, but there is an oncoming car you would hit then, saving the child in front of you, the adult on the pavement, but risking injury to the driver of the car coming towards you. this also would wreck your car, and possible major injury for you.

It will have done all these calculations in fractions of a second, and evaluated it's best move in a split second.

Which one should it do?

And which one of the 3 people or their families is going to argue in court that it should not have taken that choice.

Or, as I say, we are just going to say, well, computer knows best and not blame anyone?

I assume if it's your car, you would wish your computer in your car to take the action that best looks after your safety. So the child gets it! as the other two options place you, your car's passenger at the greater risk, than just carry on and apply the brakes. The blame then going onto the child for running out, not your fault.

I think you have thought about this far too much. Accidents happen yes, but self driving cars will the same as normal cars if they get caught up in an accident. It's not a computers fault if a car crashes in front of it, but the self driving car should be designed to drive at a safe enough distance it doesn't get affected and can stop safely. Of course us humans seem to only like a gap of 3 feet from the car in front!
I think we need to wait to see what they end up like.

 

[Erasmus]

Indeed.
Sames goes for the whole "drive electric" discussion. Internal combustion engines are raw and sound cool (well... the nice V8 ones etc.) Imagine electric car racing...

They may not sound good, but they would be brilliant to drive. IC engines have odd torque and efficiency curves, whereas electric engines have basically constant torque and efficiency right through their RPM range (or at least can with a decent voltage controller). And their RPM range is so large, it is likely the designers could get away with dropping the gearbox.

Driving electric seems "green" but it's only replacing the issue. The power needed to charge all those batteries... where does that come from? Yep, from the usual pollution power plants.

This is true, however a large coal or gas power plant is much more efficient than a teensy IC engine. It's a scale thing, plus one has to be moved around, whereas the other can be as heavy and bulky as one likes.

Besides... what about having to scrap an electric car... the toxic waste by all those batteries.... yuk.

This is true, however they wouldn't be scrapped, they would be recycled. Both for environmental, and cost reasons.

You should remember that Apple is making a huge investment in solar panels to power 100% of its power for California. And wind isn't even the only option, but it's our most developed renewable tech. Once we can fully harness wind, wave, tide, and geothermal energies, power will not be a problem. The infrastructure to fully support electric vehicles will be there in 20 years I think

I often wonder which will be first, widespread use of today's low carbon power generation techniques (i.e., once the science deniers stop denying science), or the invention of a viable nuclear fusion reactor. Which of course would make basically all other forms of energy generation obsolete.

 

[s2mikey]

Everything I have ever owned computerized has had a glitch at one time or another and required a restart or an update. Sort of scary to strap yourself in and put total trust into the computer without having the ability to take over if something goes wrong. Now there are embedded computers in aircraft, etc. that are extremely reliable, but they are very expensive and even in those cases there is still a pilot that must take over if they malfunction. I know a person who is a pilot and he will tell you there has to be someone monitoring the systems at all times and be prepared to manually fly the plane because things do go wrong.

Absolutely. Haven't you guys all seen 2001 A Space Oddyssey? Remeber HAL? NEVER made an error. Ever. Except....oh wait.... Whoops.

Screw cars that drive themselves. No thanks, no way, no how. Sorry.

 

[Erasmus]

I think you have thought about this far too much. Accidents happen yes, but self driving cars will the same as normal cars if they get caught up in an accident. It's not a computers fault if a car crashes in front of it, but the self driving car should be designed to drive at a safe enough distance it doesn't get affected and can stop safely. Of course us humans seem to only like a gap of 3 feet from the car in front!
I think we need to wait to see what they end up like.

Agreed.

Furthermore, self-driving cars won't need to be shown to never crash, or always pick the optimal trajectory in a crash. They just need to prove that they are safer than a human driver. And considering the human reaction time, and the extra time it takes to move your foot from the accelerator to the brake, and inability to optimise body-roll, trajectory, acceleration, etc. for a projected manoeuvre hundreds of times a second, the computer has a massive advantage.

And in terms of the software, validation and certification schemes already exist for ensuring robustness and accuracy, which are used all the time in automotive, medical, and aeronautical industries today.

P.S. Are you guys SERIOUSLY using H.A.L., a fictional computer from a sci-fi story, as evidence that computers can't be trusted??? If so, I have no words. They all left.

 

[Piggie]

I think you have thought about this far too much. Accidents happen yes, but self driving cars will the same as normal cars if they get caught up in an accident. It's not a computers fault if a car crashes in front of it, but the self driving car should be designed to drive at a safe enough distance it doesn't get affected and can stop safely. Of course us humans seem to only like a gap of 3 feet from the car in front!
I think we need to wait to see what they end up like.

Well, I don't think you can under think this.

It's like a computer game, you have to program in all the rules, the computer does not think it just follows rules there is no intelligence as we would call it.

It's all fine as long as laws and people's opinions can change to accept this.
At the moment, when all else fails and we need someone to blame we have the human behind the wheel we can point the blame at.

If we are to take the human out of the equation then we shall have to find something else to blame, or just accept accidents happen and don't blame.

I can't really see the car makers wanting to accept the blame for every time something goes wrong with their computer driven car.
If you had millions of them, with tens of thousands of lines of code, all in different scenarios, all expecting to run perfectly.

Heck, look at Apple and bugs in just something as simple as a phone or a tablet.
If every car was a computer car and they all talked to each other, that's one issue out the way. They you need to allow for weather, snow, ice, rain, floods across the road.
Even right now, I see a person in a car at a side turning, and I look at their face to see if they are looking at me, if they are not looking at me, there is a chance they might pull out, so I prepare myself just in case. Not much, but I'm mentally ready.

It's going to be really interesting to see who is brave enough to do this 1st.
Or course, when I just stand in front of your computer car, it will be interesting what it will do, just sit there all day, as of course it won't run me over. perhaps it may reverse and try and drive around me

 

[Erasmus]

I can't really see the car makers wanting to accept the blame for every time something goes wrong with their computer driven car.
If you had millions of them, with tens of thousands of lines of code, all in different scenarios, all expecting to run perfectly.

Software validation. It already happens.

Heck, look at Apple and bugs in just something as simple as a phone or a tablet.

That's not relevant. If your iPhone crashes, you don't die, it's just a minor inconvenience. And which means Apple is under no obligation to prove that the software can't crash. In order to get an automated vehicle legally driving on roads, the manufacturer would have to be able to prove that the software can't crash, or has adequate redundancy, and is robust. This already happens in many industries where reliability is critical to keeping people alive, and is no big deal. It just costs time and money.

Even right now, I see a person in a car at a side turning, and I look at their face to see if they are looking at me, if they are not looking at me, there is a chance they might pull out, so I prepare myself just in case. Not much, but I'm mentally ready.

A computer controlled car would always be "mentally ready", even after driving non-stop from 8pm to 3am, on a dead-straight country highway, with no other cars, just one stray cow/roo/deer/[insert large animal from your country here].

It's going to be really interesting to see who is brave enough to do this 1st.
Or course, when I just stand in front of your computer car, it will be interesting what it will do, just sit there all day, as of course it won't run me over. perhaps it may reverse and try and drive around me

You should try that with a human driver some time. I expect you will have a broken nose far sooner than if it was a self-driving car.

 

[subsonix]

It's like a computer game, you have to program in all the rules, the computer does not think it just follows rules there is no intelligence as we would call it.

The problem is that you can not give all the rules, the real world is messy.

 

[bgarnett]

Is that Google self-drive image for real? I can't stop laughing, it looks like a Mr Bean joke hahaha.

But seriously, can't wait for the reality of when cars are able to take over, oh the dream of smooth flowing traffic and no idiots who do 20 under the limit any longer.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

So is this going to force Jony Ive to give up his Bentley? Can't imagine it's very eco-friendly.

Image

You don't have to give up one to have the other.