I think we need more stats, studies and trials - I think I might feel more comfortable if accidents of autonomous vehicles were proven to be below accidents by vehicles with human drivers in control. However, ideally, the margin of error should be zero imo.
Definitely agree we need more studies, but I voted as a driver that Iâd be fine with them. IDK about Teslas, but back in Apr I bought a 2020 Toyota RAV4 that has some light automation:
It can identify speed limit signs (but not stoplights) and some other road signs.
It also has adaptive cruise control with lane detection, meaning if I set my cruise, itâll stay in the current lane by itself (including steering around curves) and slow down/speed up when necessary due to the vehicle ahead.
a. It doesnât change speed when it detects a new speed limit, although thatâd be rad!
As I see it, the trick is having a human behind the wheel to respond when necessary. I use those functions and adore them, but I donât trust them. I always have my hands on the wheel and hover my foot over the brake, because I think thatâs part of being a defensive driver and a responsible citizen on the road.
We definitely donât have true AI in the sci-fi meaning of the word but more trials and hardening of the algorithms / neural nets we now have should be done constantly.
I view human drivers as a huge life risk on the roads. We should fight to kick all humans out of the driver seats.
I agree. I believe weâll eventually phase out human drivers, but I also believe weâre a long way out from that. While the Teslas of the world work on that, I think itâs important for âcommodityâ car manufacturers to continue refining and evolving safety features like the ones I mentioned, so they become available to everyone.
I also think we need to focus more on public transit and walking than on individual car ownership!
Hereâs a fun fact: Teslas are engineered to have just one primary computer for all of the vehicleâs functions (except Autopilot, which has a dedicated controller). My new hybrid RAV4 has something like 70! Can you imagine what a patchwork Toyotaâs source control must look like?
Oh, definitely. But we must not forget thereâs a ton of people out there who donât have much career and working place choice. They really canât be picky and so they have to drive half the city in order to make ends meet.
So there are much bigger fish to fry until thereâs no economic incentive in owning a car, I am afraid.
Personally I think working in offices should be banned for sectors where working from home is possible - other than for weekly meetings and where it is not possible to work from home for genuine reasons (such as security).
I also think itâs about time we started to review manufacture of products too, where they should be manufactured locally if possible - this would be good for local economies too and would possibly even alleviate certain security woes (when it comes to things like tech)
I voted âyesâ for all, under the assumption, that street infrastructure is also getting prepared for those cars.
They should not have to rely on camera to identify the state of a traffic light or sign. Signs and lights should âtellâ what they are.
I vaguely remember some background story for a pen and paper RPG I played decades ago, where autonomous cars were real, but only on âgrid enabledâ streets, where special electronic in the street powered the car and also transferred data about speed limits etc.
YES @NobbZ, youâre right on! A smart driving infrastructure is absolutely part of the equation. There have already been some attempts at solar roads, in fact, although as of a couple years ago theyâre still non-viable.
From the reports Tesla has put out, the number of accidents of cars in self-driving modes is significantly less than when humans are driving, by an order or magnitudes.
Ideally they would not get in accidents at all, but even as of a few years ago they were already significantly safer than a human, so human driving needs to be reducing as much as possible.
Honestly if we could get full self driving of all cars then a lot of the human reactionary things arenât as needed, they could drive perfectly and smoothly. ^.^
At this point, I would only trust them in certain situations. I own a Tesla, and I trust it driving on the freeway and the automatic parking because those scenarios are quite specific. I will not be purchasing the full autonomous driving for my car though.
That being said, I do think this is headed in the right direction and when it gets to full autonomy that it would save a lot of lives. However, I think that is a long way away.
I am totally with Grey here. Ban all humans drivers. It makes no sense at all for humans to keep driving around manually when we totally have the technology to make it all automatic.
@AstonJ as to your concern whether the automated cars can read traffic signs, they need not to when all cars are automated. They only need to be able to coordinate amongst themselves which turns the problem into one of software.
I keep saying this for literally more then 10 years now, and I normally add that we will pay a very high price by letting China manufacturer all we need, be it due to security or just economic dependence on them.
To bear in mind that I am not against global trade, but as it sands now is just too dangerous for each country economy in the long run.
I would say that any company in a country shouldnât be allowed to manufacturer more then 50% outside the country, no matter the company Head Quarters location. This would still promote global trade while boosting the country industrial sector and economy.
Security is definitely a concern tho for me itâs the environmental impact thatâs most concerning - manufacturing locally would not only be much better because weâre cutting transport, but also because we can actually adhere to pollution and other standards
They really canât be picky and so they have to drive half the city in order to make ends meet.
