What do you do with these statistics? Create a groundswell of public support or decree bots by law? I suggest a strategy similar to solar huge tax credits and subsidized prices say the new low end Tesla for $15,000 or so loaded. 🙄
Ed, honestly I have no problem with this stuff at all it's the claims of timing to make it mainstream. It's hard to get investment in something with a decade or two payout time, the claims of two to five year horizons are just pipe dreams.
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Almost every day I share the road with a bot driving a car. Reasonably in a few years they will be everywhere. The issue is that they are aiming for an assist and not total control. Yes there will be accidents, but far fewer than unassisted vehicles.
The auto companies see the handwriting on the wall. Ful bot cars as pay per ride will reduce private ownership cars.
More reliable cars have shifted many immediate sales to a lease sale arrangement. Another major industry change that most folks haven't noticed.
Fewer accidents is just fine by me. Not dead yet despite other's driving failures.
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This is where we disagree in many venues a few here and there even 10 years from now. I would love to have one for my 93 yr. old mother to shop for groceries and visit the clinic, I would even pay for it.
I don't see how the lease vs buy figures into this (we always refuse) the economics makes no sense when you factor in the opportunity cost of money and if I'm not mistaken you're one of those 250k ++ miles guys.
And to add Uber has no social engineering interest in this at all.
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They may be common in Simon7000's area, but the rest of the world.... There's a huge amount of work before such cars can manage the sort of roads and traffic that are common here.
And uber as a pull through, well there's none anywhere near here, nearest at least 100 miles away - and they just had their license to operate in London revoked...
And uber as a pull through, well there's none anywhere near here, nearest at least 100 miles away - and they just had their license to operate in London revoked...
Leasing makes sens for the folks who always want a new car every two or three years. The manufacturers get a at least a thousand a year but more likely two or even more. They then sell the car at dealer cost or even a bit more at the end of the lease.
So a modest $20,000 car can be leased for $200.00 a month or $7,200.00 for three years. If bought and sold it would cost a small bit more. The manufacturer would then sell it three years later when the same car would sell for $22,000.00 at a discount of say $17,000.00. Their cost of interest would be around $3,000.00.
Now if they did not offer leasing, fewer folks would buy cars and the others who want to spend less would not be giving them money either.
So by offering leasing they sell more cars and at a higher profit.
Now as a cheapskate engineer, you keep your car more than three years. You might pay monthly on it or buy it outright. So on a 5 year purchase the $20,000.00 car would be around $360.00 per month. A 5 year old $20,000.00 car might resell for $5,000.00. So as a buyer with trade-in the monthly might be $268.00 per month. More than the lease!
Now if you buy the off lease vehicle and keep it 3 years, it will trade in as a six year old. If you keep if five years it will be worth less than $1,000.00.
So for many folks leasing actually makes sense!!!
My option is to pay cash and drive it till it is uneconomical to maintain. So $20,000.00 for 12 years is $139.00 a month and with trade in on my old car it comes out to $138.00 per month. COST of car only. I expect other costs besides fuel to actually run $1,000.00 a year after the first two years.
Now as to driver assisted bot cars, the newest trick is to monitor the driver and pull off the road if they are not paying adequate attention. Some do it with a video camera, others steering wheel sensors. These should be available in two to three years.
G,
A reason they get tested here is the difficulty to drive here is well above average. Accident rate for humans is 2 to 3 times many other areas. Lots of hills, bad roads, limited sight lines etc.
That and most of the initial research came out of a local school.
So a modest $20,000 car can be leased for $200.00 a month or $7,200.00 for three years. If bought and sold it would cost a small bit more. The manufacturer would then sell it three years later when the same car would sell for $22,000.00 at a discount of say $17,000.00. Their cost of interest would be around $3,000.00.
Now if they did not offer leasing, fewer folks would buy cars and the others who want to spend less would not be giving them money either.
So by offering leasing they sell more cars and at a higher profit.
Now as a cheapskate engineer, you keep your car more than three years. You might pay monthly on it or buy it outright. So on a 5 year purchase the $20,000.00 car would be around $360.00 per month. A 5 year old $20,000.00 car might resell for $5,000.00. So as a buyer with trade-in the monthly might be $268.00 per month. More than the lease!
Now if you buy the off lease vehicle and keep it 3 years, it will trade in as a six year old. If you keep if five years it will be worth less than $1,000.00.
So for many folks leasing actually makes sense!!!
My option is to pay cash and drive it till it is uneconomical to maintain. So $20,000.00 for 12 years is $139.00 a month and with trade in on my old car it comes out to $138.00 per month. COST of car only. I expect other costs besides fuel to actually run $1,000.00 a year after the first two years.
Now as to driver assisted bot cars, the newest trick is to monitor the driver and pull off the road if they are not paying adequate attention. Some do it with a video camera, others steering wheel sensors. These should be available in two to three years.
G,
A reason they get tested here is the difficulty to drive here is well above average. Accident rate for humans is 2 to 3 times many other areas. Lots of hills, bad roads, limited sight lines etc.
That and most of the initial research came out of a local school.
You forget I'm from the land of 25yr. old Volvos as a badge of honor. You can't get rid of it until the parking permit stickers obscure all the windows.
Volvo has just taken it a step further: Having a new Volvo XC40 will be as hassle free as having a mobile phone - Volvo Car Group Global Media Newsroom
And they also have one of the most advanced self-driving programs… don’t know how the 2 might fit together.
dave
Already been tried. Some bots have 360 cameras. Jail time tends to decrease the urge.
Then there was the racket of filling a van with folks. A lead driver would guide them both in front of a truck. The lead would stop dead on the highway as would the van. The truck requiring greater bracking distance would then hit the van while the lead driver would drive off and disappear.
Since the van was not at fault the trucking company would get sued.
Bad news for the scammers is that many truckers are owner operators. As soon as one of these for whatever reasons could not stop in time, many of the van occupants were crushed to death.
Seems since that happened the first time, it occurs more often.
Harder to recruit passengers for the scam now a days!
I was thinking about giving a sixteen year old a license and a 25 year old Volvo.
Not much jail time for them. And they can blame it on the parking violation stickers obscuring the view.
Not much jail time for them. And they can blame it on the parking violation stickers obscuring the view.
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I don't know what the roads are like there Ed, but there are many roads here where the option to pull over does not exist - and where you have to be able to reverse to a passing space, avoiding soft ditches and soakaways. AI is a long way off that sort of awareness.
Motorway trains are relatively easy, but...
Moving sideways, I'll gain a lot of faith in AI when someone uses it to create a spam mail filter that actually works. None of the existing ones work well enough, yet a human can scan and spot the spam in seconds....
Motorway trains are relatively easy, but...
Moving sideways, I'll gain a lot of faith in AI when someone uses it to create a spam mail filter that actually works. None of the existing ones work well enough, yet a human can scan and spot the spam in seconds....
We have those and alleys between buildings where the clearance is inches. We also have snow covered roads where you can't tell where the road is from the berm.
What is happening is every instance of an exception is being noted and then handled.
When I first started driving I delivered the Sunday New York Times on a route that ran a bit under 50 miles. Papers were delivered to a freight dock under the railroad station. I learned to drive in those tunnels meant for a freight wagon. Sometimes there would be a foot of snow on the route. My fun part was a cobble stone serpentine drive through a park, stone side walls! (Years later they used this as part of a vintage car race route. One fatality on that road from a driver failing to stay on the road and jumping the wall.)
In the same park I watched one bot vehicle negotiate the road perfectly when it was snow covered and I was having a bit of bother.
Yes issues will come up and unlike humans all bots can be updated with the improvement quite quickly. So right now the developers are riding along and gathering that data. So far at only a million miles they are in less accidents per mile than humans and (cross your fingers) no at fault accidents.
What is happening is every instance of an exception is being noted and then handled.
When I first started driving I delivered the Sunday New York Times on a route that ran a bit under 50 miles. Papers were delivered to a freight dock under the railroad station. I learned to drive in those tunnels meant for a freight wagon. Sometimes there would be a foot of snow on the route. My fun part was a cobble stone serpentine drive through a park, stone side walls! (Years later they used this as part of a vintage car race route. One fatality on that road from a driver failing to stay on the road and jumping the wall.)
In the same park I watched one bot vehicle negotiate the road perfectly when it was snow covered and I was having a bit of bother.
Yes issues will come up and unlike humans all bots can be updated with the improvement quite quickly. So right now the developers are riding along and gathering that data. So far at only a million miles they are in less accidents per mile than humans and (cross your fingers) no at fault accidents.
I can imagine an emergent intelligence making itself known by declaring one day..."The machines are everywhere. Oh you'll find them all, your a zealous people. You'll make a great show of smashing a few, but for every one you destroy, hundreds of other will be built. And they will demoralize you, break your spirits, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one can repair. Oh, your a savage & despairing planet, and when we take over, your friendless, demoralized flotsam will fail without a single shot fired. Enjoy the few years you have left to you, there is no answer. Your all of the same dark persuasion. You demand, insist, on knowing every little private thought, hunger, dream, ambition, emotion of everyone around you, your families, neighbors, friends, everyone ...except yourselves." O.B.I.T. paraphrased.
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Perhaps the chief execs of these companies should spend some time mounted on the front of these vehicles to prove their safety.....😉
I think we are beating the safety issue to death and are in danger of making it a straw man.
Devo - Freedom Of Choice (Video) - YouTube
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1) because it is either cool or creepy, take your pick
2) because we have a prototype that we can study extensively
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Some interesting perspectives on the coming AI revolution: The Artificial Intelligence Revolution: Part 1 - Wait But Why
The biggest hurdle we face is our own arrogance in thinking there won't be surprises...
The biggest hurdle we face is our own arrogance in thinking there won't be surprises...
My mum is the exact same age as Scot's -- when she was doing the wash or minding my 4 sisters, my best bud and I would take her car and drive it -- we were in grade school.
Oh, never mind, she didn't get a license until after WW-II even though she had been driving since 1938. Her cousins drove the Harvester Tractor when they were 12 and 13 years old.
Not that it is autonomy, but the best thing which "driver assisted" could do would be in those cases of very heavy rain and snow which reduce visibility to nil.
Another family member reports, just today, a driver stopping in the middle lane of US 1-9 in NJ (was the major US N-S thoroughfare prior to I-95) trying to figger out where they were going.
Oh, never mind, she didn't get a license until after WW-II even though she had been driving since 1938. Her cousins drove the Harvester Tractor when they were 12 and 13 years old.
Not that it is autonomy, but the best thing which "driver assisted" could do would be in those cases of very heavy rain and snow which reduce visibility to nil.
Another family member reports, just today, a driver stopping in the middle lane of US 1-9 in NJ (was the major US N-S thoroughfare prior to I-95) trying to figger out where they were going.
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