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Uber Will Begin Picking Up Pittsburgh Users in Self-Driving Cars This Month
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Probably not much as long as they are keeping the safety engineers in the car.
But when this becomes unmanned, who knows? There are a lot of legal issues to be worked out.
It doesn't actually save travel time. Just the fatigue of driving, and some of the hassles of parking. I think it will be beneficial to older people who want to remain in the suburbs, but it doesn't replace the convenience and service clustering in the city that young people value.
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Why not? This is mission-critical to Uber, and they are extremely well-funded. It's probably the main focus of their entire R&D program. In contrast, this relates to only one secondly Google business (mapping); otherwise, it's just another cool tech like so many others Google dabbles in. Besides, Google is relatively non-secretive, so you are more aware of what they are doing than of the activities of many other companies.
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This. It's a game changer, and we can't even imagine some of the new things that may open up.
Potentially, the biggest thing I can think of is that it makes car-ownership far less important. We might find that in 2030, car ownership is only for enthusiasts.
Whenever something new threatens take on a duty currently filled by a human, some folks immeditaly think society will crumble. I think that's way too narrow a view on the change. So a computer drives the car and thus a human is out of a job, right? I think not exactly. This new technology will create new jobs, some of which will require humans. You mentioned that these new automonus cars will be better maintained than current cars. Someone, likey humans in some capactiy, will have to build them, test them, and maintain them. If this technology allows uber to transport 100x more people, will they need more customer service folks to handle the increase in customer issues? Will they need a team of rescue vehicles if a self driving car breaks down? If uber has 100 cars running around a city (because their abilty to scale is no longer limited to human driver availibility), that's a lot of oil changes, brake jobs, and vomit clean up. So the humans may not be replaced, but moved to another function.
As far as having no driver = no more social skills - I dont buy that either. When I'm in an uber, I'm often not alone. I'm often tipsy from a 3 mimosa brunch with friends. Or what about a person who can't drive who's abilty to get around town depends on a taxi service. Most of our new tech is built around human interaction. Think about it. Sure it's differnt, but that doesnt mean it's worse.
You'll get it once you see someone in a major accident.
Then you'll realize that every day there's 100 preventable deaths and thousands of preventable major injuries in the world caused by human error in cars.
The sooner autonomous cars are deployed, the sooner lives are saved.
Then there's also the massive boost in productivity and reduction of stress when humans no longer have to deal with traffic themselves and can instead have their car do it for them.
Just a week ago I watched a stranger die in an SUV because a semi changed lanes without looking or signaling. If the semi was autonomous, it wouldn't have changed lanes. If the SUV had been autonomous, it would have seen the semi abruptly moving towards it and could have swerved out of the way.
A month ago, the bridesmaid from my wedding ended up in the ICU because she crossed a four way and a drunk driver in a pickup T-boned into her SUV at 90 miles an hour. If either vehicle was autonomous, the crash could have been avoided. Instead, her pelvis is shattered. She's fortunate. She'll heal and regain the ability to walk again next year.
Three years ago, I rear ended someone. They got whiplash and have to visit the doctor's for reoccurring migraines now.
Lives are impacted for the worse all the freaking time by these tiny mistakes that people make in vehicles. They're tiny mistakes made in a matter of milliseconds that impact people for months or years or forever. They can't be undone afterwards, but they can be prevented with autonomous driving.
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It will save time when all cares are autonomous. No more conservative gaps between cars because you have to build in the stupid human's reaction times. No more waiting for the idiot in front to put down their cell phone before they pull away. Possibly even the end of the traffic lights at intersections are cars will be self aware and can stack so they can all change directions in turn. It might even be the end of the controlled intersection. We Brits foresaw this decades ago with roundabouts.
Can't wait. My commute must take 40-50% longer than necessary because idiot humans are not paying attention, refuse to indicate etc etc.
Again, this isn't Uber's technology anyway. The XC90 has been in testing by Volvo for some time now and is already equipped with autonomous driving technology similar to Tesla's (Pilot Assist I/II). This partnership is to benefit both companies.
Did you miss this a few years ago?
https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/
Those gaps between cars aren't just for reaction times, they're for actual braking distance and safety in general. Gaps aren't a problem when it comes to traffic speed, they're only a problem for those who insist that the person in front of them can force the next car to go faster.
I'm sure your commute takes longer than necessary but 40-50% seems like wishful thinking.
Self-driving cars will operate like a train on highways. The train will brake 'together' eliminating the need to the gaps required by law now. Cars will be very different when they are all autonomous. They have evolved to what they are today because they are driven by humans.
If someone wants to do that, they can just walk into a parking garage today ...
The interior needs to be robust of course, similar to public transport today.
There'd have to be some kind of authentication (perhaps tapping an NFC-enabled phone or RFID card).
The bigger problem to me seems how self-driving cars are supposed to deal with unexpected situations that we see every day particularly in urban traffic. Things as simple as getting around a double-parked vehicle or a construction site on a busy two-lane street.
On the other hand, the potential is huge, since it will open up personal transportation to whole new parts of the population who can't or won't drive today (such as kids, elderly or disabled people) as well as new applications such as deliveries and other things we haven't even thought about yet.
We won't see the benefits until government is allowed to fully back the switch. The scenarios you mentioned could be mitigated by smart roads that have sensors in them. All cars would be 'connected' so the parked car presented itself as an obstacle in advance (think of TCAS-like tech in airplanes). Further, parking may not be an issue in the future; if cars evolve to lose the bulk required at present, they could transform and 'fold' themselves away.
The possibilities are endless.
all i have to say about Volvo is this ...
i actually did not know that ... thank you. I guess that is a little more relief that they have had google helping them. But also someone else pointed out that it is Volvo that will be supplying the vehicles with the automation.
Über's goal is to make money for themselves. If they can make more by putting their drivers out of work they will happily do it.
You think we'll be sending our self-driving cars on round-trip missions? Not likely. The revolution will happen in human transport. I.e. we won't need to buy vehicles and instead request a ride to where we need to go and get picked up within minutes. Goodbye huge parking lot centers. Also will be huge for replacing semi-truck drivers.
Haha. First the taxis, then the drivers.
Well, as much as I like Uber, I see why they get protested against.
Well, as much as I like Uber, I see why they get protested against.
+1
We're dealing with elderly parents too. We'll all be elderly at some point and need help driving.
People will not stop owning cars....Won't happen. This is the biggest misconception out there. In fact, cars are going to be larger and more luxurious. You will buy a car based on interior features, more so than the size of the engine. While there will be many people, especially in low-income areas, that will use self-driving services....most middle class working families will not pull out their phone to order a car every time they leave the house.
Round-trip missions, on the other hand, will have a huge impact on our society and if you're a smart business person, you'll invest in the right places.
A world of possibility awaits when you remove the need to have a driver in your own car. It's innevitable.
Itˋs volvo who helps here a lot: http://www.volvocars.com/au/about/innovations/intellisafe/autopilot
And about the infamous video shown some posts above: google the background story
they disabled the feature... Human failure, not volvos...
Iˋve got the xc60 and it is awesome how all the assisting features work.
And about the infamous video shown some posts above: google the background story
they disabled the feature... Human failure, not volvos...Iˋve got the xc60 and it is awesome how all the assisting features work.
I currently drive a semi-autonomous car. On freeways it's almost completely autonomous. It slows and speeds up automatically with traffic flow, steers itself and changes lanes when I signal. What it won't do is follow the navigation automatically (yet). So I have to take over to exit the freeway or switch to a different freeway at an interchange.
I drove 200 miles last weekend through various freeway conditions that included construction. Not a single problem. The future of automobiles is almost here.
See the Mercedes-Benz concept here... https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/innovation/research-vehicle-f-015-luxury-in-motion/
Watch the real car video here...
I drove 200 miles last weekend through various freeway conditions that included construction. Not a single problem. The future of automobiles is almost here.
See the Mercedes-Benz concept here... https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/innovation/research-vehicle-f-015-luxury-in-motion/
Watch the real car video here...
Anything that you can list under the heading "things as simple as" will probably be addressed early in the evolution of automated driving. It will be the unusual situations (which also confused human drivers) that give automated drivers and their passengers problems.
One advantage that automated driving software has is that it can more easily "learn" from obscure accidents that happen to other vehicles around the world.