Driverless Cars

[turbohater]

As much as i like driving i cant wait for the cars that drive themselves to come onto the market.You wont need insurance as they wont crash, knock people over or speed and you will be able to drink as much as you like as "it" will be in controll,so no drunk drivers .Somehow i dont think it will work as Cameron and co would lose too much money.

[FordMondeo]

Oh yes driverless cars, using an operating system made by Microsoft which Ford already does.

I can imagine going down the motorway at 70mph and the car suddenly decides to bluescreen, please press cntrl alt delete or we will crash, how about a mid motorway reboot? lol

[alexp999]

It is only the infotainment that Ford have used M$ for.

But I agree, think it is a bad idea and I wouldn't feel safe on the road with cars being controlled entirely by computers.

I read an article the other day that made a really good point, which is that many people would suffer from motion sickness in a driverless car, myself included - not sure how they would overcome that one.

[Incontro]

This fear of driver-less cars is totally irrational in my opinion. If you don't trust computers at all - then why fly on a plane? These days aircraft are piloted almost entirely by computer (autopilot), except for landing and take-off which the captain does manually (though this is still sometimes done via computer, just isn't as common). And it goes without saying that most aviation accidents occur due to pilot error.

Likewise, for car accidents, its usually down to human stupidity (drunk, texting, or just poor driving ability in general) in 95% of cases. Bring on driver-less cars, its the way forward. :)

Edit: The only 'downside' of driver-less cars that I can think of is that literally every single person (who can afford it) will probably get one, and the roads will be even more congested than they already are.

[alexp999]

The air France flight went down due to the computer letting go of control and the co-pilots being too inexperienced to recognise what had happened and fly manually.

The same thing will happen with driverless cars. What is the point of the car being driverless if you have to be watching everything that is going on, ready to take over?

There is also a big difference between autopilot maintaing altitude and heading (like cruise control) and a vehicle which can make its own decisions.

[Incontro]

The air France flight went down due to the computer letting go of control and the co-pilots being too inexperienced to recognise what had happened and fly manually.

The same thing will happen with driverless cars. What is the point of the car being driverless if you have to be watching everything that is going on, ready to take over?

There is also a big difference between autopilot maintaing altitude and heading (like cruise control) and a vehicle which can make its own decisions.

The air France flight went down due to the computer letting go of control and the co-pilots being too inexperienced to recognise what had happened and fly manually.

Yep, human error.

There is also a big difference between autopilot maintaing altitude and heading (like cruise control) and a vehicle which can make its own decisions.

Auto-pilot is a lot more complicated than simply maintaining altitude and heading. As I stated, in some cases (on some aircraft), it is capable of completely landing the aircraft. And in challenging weather conditions, the auto-pilot is making literally thousands of calculations a second - taking into account wind-speed, wind-direction, air-speed, acceleration, attitude, and then combining all of that data to control all the different flight control surfaces (ailerons, rudders etc.) to maintain the desired speed, rate of climb, and heading. It's extremely complicated, and far more so than controlling a car will ever be, trust me. ;)

[alexp999]

I know it is a lot more complicated, just wanted to make the point that it still requires the driver or pilot to know what they are doing to take over when the computer can't.

I still think motion sickness will be an issue, I struggle in just about every moving vehicle I'm not controlling.

[Ianb]

This fear of driver-less cars is totally irrational in my opinion. If you don't trust computers at all - then why fly on a plane? These days aircraft are piloted almost entirely by computer (autopilot), except for landing and take-off which the captain does manually (though this is still sometimes done via computer, just isn't as common). And it goes without saying that most aviation accidents occur due to pilot error.

Likewise, for car accidents, its usually down to human stupidity (drunk, texting, or just poor driving ability in general) in 95% of cases. Bring on driver-less cars, its the way forward. :)

Edit: The only 'downside' of driver-less cars that I can think of is that literally every single person (who can afford it) will probably get one, and the roads will be even more congested than they already are.

Yes and no, my dad was an airline pilot, he started off actually flying planes and obviously as time and aircraft progressed it did indeed become computerised (that's the yes part), however, should the **** hit the fan, that's when it's ideal to have a thinking mind up there.... especially one (or two - co pilot) who want to save their own backsides!.. engine failures, bad weather, mechanical problems can require judgement calls - Hence why pilots are training in simulators so often where they're bombarded with near impossible situations: Engine fails so you won't make it to your initial destination therefore you have to divert to one of two airfields, one of them is right on the limit of your fuel but it's a clear sunny day (so provided nothing goes wrong on the way and you don't !Removed! up the landing you'll be fine), the other you'll make with enough fuel to spare to go around numerous times but the weather is awful.. etc... so whilst computers can do the calculations, and humans can introduce a large amount of error, it's nice to know someones trained to make major decisions... Hudson river landing wasn't carried out by computers...

Then indeed the aircraft around, some are more advanced than others - airbus' are very advanced. Boeing 737's are still 'stick flying' sorts of aircraft which rely less on computers...

[Phil 87]

It is only the infotainment that Ford have used M$ for.

But I agree, think it is a bad idea and I wouldn't feel safe on the road with cars being controlled entirely by computers.

I read an article the other day that made a really good point, which is that many people would suffer from motion sickness in a driverless car, myself included - not sure how they would overcome that one.

I suppose the motion sickness part makes sense, but for most people who are ok being a passenger there won't be a problem.

As for not feeling safe, I think that would probably be true if I was in one of these cars, but would be something that you'd get used to. I think the amount of testing these vehicles will have to go through will make them far safer than the average driver. This is just because if one of them causes just one death there would be such a big outcry against the car. Maybe to begin with the driver will need to be ready to take control at any time, like a pilot, but that would kind of defeat the purpose.

[laumk7]

I've got to say they can be as safe as houses, but I still wouldn't step foot into one, there's still too many 'what ifs' about for my liking - face it until everyone owns one there will still be driver cars and what of the death trap 'classics' on the road? (sorry I don't see anything remotely 'quaint' about them), far far too many what ifs to write into the programming, why not just a driver with a decent set of eyes and ears?

Sent from my iPad using Ford OC

[Phil 87]

I've got to say they can be as safe as houses, but I still wouldn't step foot into one, there's still too many 'what ifs' about for my liking - face it until everyone owns one there will still be driver cars and what of the death trap 'classics' on the road? (sorry I don't see anything remotely 'quaint' about them), far far too many what ifs to write into the programming, why not just a driver with a decent set of eyes and ears?

I can see where you're coming from, but I'd trust a properly designed driverless car over a driver I don't know any day. If you look at the way a lot of people drive they are just accidents waiting to happen. Look how close together most people drive on motorways - I always try and leave a safe gap but you could often fit 2 other cars in that gap due to how they tailgate each other (not saying I'm a perfect driver or anything).

I'd still be apprehensive about getting in one of these cars and putting my life in the hands of a computer, but I think that's just the fear of the unknown. Being a software developer myself I know that properly designed and tested software does exactly what it's meant to do - it doesn't get tired or drunk and it doesn't have lapses of concentration. Driverless cars will never be 100% safe, but I think they will be far safer than 90% of drivers on the road by the time you can walk into a dealer and buy one.

The problem for manufacturers is when these cars do inevitably go wrong there will be a huge uproar about it, and meanwhile there will be many people killed on the roads by other people and it won't even make the news.

[alexp999]

Problem is, you still have room for human error.

Who programs the computer?

[Phil 87]

Problem is, you still have room for human error.

Who programs the computer?

Exactly, and that's where the problem is. It's impossible to have a computer that's 100% reliable, but it's certainly possible to have one that's much more reliable than a human.

[jeebowhite]

I love airplanes. Air crash investigation and all the things I read on them I swear I could fly one of I got in a sim

Anyway driverless cars sound like a good idea, but they will take time to determine their reliability. What worries me is that electric cars have been on the market for years now yet they have an appalling range. The thing with driverless cats us that the amount of sensors, radar, lidar, camera's etc that it relies on, you have to wonder how reliable the parts would be for the first few years. If I was to get one, i wouldn't take it out to get drunk as I would expect to take control soon after.

[Phil 87]

The thing with driverless cats us that the amount of sensors, radar, lidar, camera's etc that it relies on, you have to wonder how reliable the parts would be for the first few years.

Yeah I was thinking about that too, maybe they'll have 2 of everything so if one system fails, the other takes over. I think most planes are like that aren't they? At least they have 2 of the thing that makes all the decisions.

[jeebowhite]

They have controls to flick between things like altimeter, and ground sensing radar vs barometric.

They can override one with the other if captain or copilot doesn't work.

[Ianb]

Actually James that's a good point about how reliable they'd be for the first few years BUT, the other thing is, once the teething problems are worked out, how reliable will the car be when it's a few years old? They'll have to be very closely serviced etc, also an MOT is not guaranteeing a cars roadworthiness.... And so who is responsible for a driverless cars condition? Who would know how to check everything?

[Phil 87]

Actually James that's a good point about how reliable they'd be for the first few years BUT, the other thing is, once the teething problems are worked out, how reliable will the car be when it's a few years old? They'll have to be very closely serviced etc, also an MOT is not guaranteeing a cars roadworthiness.... And so who is responsible for a driverless cars condition? Who would know how to check everything?

That's a good point too. But if you look at BMW and some other manufacturers, they already have the technology that tells the driver when to service the car, and what specific parts need servicing. This may just be based on number of miles covered, but a driverless car could monitor everything it needs to so that faults can be detected. I think it would still be the driver or "owner" who would be responsible for keeping the car roadworthy though.