http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ontario-announcement-automated-cars-1.3268181
Testing to start as early as the New Year.
Testing to start as early as the New Year.
Holy smokes, I fucking certainly don't feel safe with meatballs shaving on the 401 right now. bring on the robots for sureNot today. But give this technology 20 years to mature then definitely. Looking forward to never having to worry about drunk drivers on the road.
I can't see robot cars driving like maniacs, and are probably predictable and safe.
I guess it depends on why it got hit. How well does it see pedestrians or cyclists or school buses?I heard one report that the only accidents a robot car got into was when a human driver hit it. I don't think the technology has been perfected though, but I can't see robot cars driving like maniacs, and are probably predictable and safe.
I imagine they'd get passed a lot, if they are programmed to drive with a safe distance between cars they'd have been butting in all the time, forcing them to drive slower.Yes. Unless there's some sort of malfunction I would feel safer having robot cars on the road than the current morons on our highways.
By most accounts, a demo ride in any of the Google cars is an astonishing thrill. It’s even more impressive when you recall that in a much-publicized test only a decade ago, robotic vehicles couldn’t finish even eight miles of a 150-mile course. Surely it’s still possible, despite the current challenges, that Google’s legion of genius Ph.D.s could make quick work of any remaining obstacles. Right?
Probably not. For starters, the Google car was able to do so much more than its predecessors in large part because the company had the resources to do something no other robotic car research project ever could: develop an ingenious but extremely expensive mapping system. These maps contain the exact three-dimensional location of streetlights, stop signs, crosswalks, lane markings, and every other crucial aspect of a roadway.
That might not seem like such a tough job for the company that gave us Google Earth and Google Maps. But the maps necessary for the Google car are an order of magnitude more complicated. In fact, when I first wrote about the car for MIT Technology Review, Google admitted to me that the process it currently uses to make the maps are too inefficient to work in the country as a whole.
To create them, a dedicated vehicle outfitted with a bank of sensors first makes repeated passes scanning the roadway to be mapped. The data is then downloaded, with every square foot of the landscape pored over by both humans and computers to make sure that all-important real-world objects have been captured. This complete map gets loaded into the car's memory before a journey, and because it knows from the map about the location of many stationary objects, its computer—essentially a generic PC running Ubuntu Linux—can devote more of its energies to tracking moving objects, like other cars.
But the maps have problems, starting with the fact that the car can’t travel a single inch without one. Since maps are one of the engineering foundations of the Google car, before the company's vision for ubiquitous self-driving cars can be realized, all 4 million miles of U.S. public roads will be need to be mapped, plus driveways, off-road trails, and everywhere else you'd ever want to take the car. So far, only a few thousand miles of road have gotten the treatment, most of them around the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California. The company frequently says that its car has driven more than 700,000 miles safely, but those are the same few thousand mapped miles, driven over and over again.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html
Not are going to, have. Lots of 2015/2016 models have numerous self driving capabilities billed as driver assistance or safety features: blind spot detection, forward collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control.@GameBoy27 is right. Lots of issues with full autonomous vehicles. I think complete, reliable door to door self driving cars is at least 15 years away.
In the meantime, cars are going to come out with tons of autonomous features that will still require a driver to pay attention and take over if necessary. Self driving on the highway, self driving bumper to bumper traffic on the Gardiner. Self parking.
Should be cool.
All that stuff you mentioned makes driving safer, which is a good thing. I'm all for technology, but completely driverless is so far away it's not even funny.Not are going to, have. Lots of 2015/2016 models have numerous self driving capabilities billed as driver assistance or safety features: blind spot detection, forward collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control.
Many cars now have cameras that watch the car in front and adjust speed to maintain distance, while also adjusting the steering to keep you in the lane. At that point you as driver could fall asleep and the car would just keep driving, except some models also watch your face and yank your seatbelt if they detect you are inattentive.
They don't do lane changes, tur but they will scream at you if you attempt an unsafe lane change, etc.
The technology is really close.
Initially it will serve only a niche market, like initially mobile phones served only a niche market, and computers served only a niche market. But as their capabilities grow they will eventually spread out and dominate everything. Cars with steering wheels will eventually be the niche market.All that stuff you mentioned makes driving safer, which is a good thing. I'm all for technology, but completely driverless is so far away it's not even funny.
Did you read how far away they still are? http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html
Making it work everywhere, practical and affordable is decades away. Besides, it will likely only serve a niche market.
Or what about when it's snowing and all the lines disappear?We all know eventually this is something possible
In today's world it is an accident waiting to happen
Robo-car only works if road is in good repair & properly marked
The shit show that is GTA roads constantly under construction & mispainted lines.
My car right now has a fit because the many construction zones have mispainted yellow/white lines, I would NEVER give a car total control just based on what I have seen the drift avoidance software does.
The idea is to stay inside the lines, well what about when lines go into a wall?
Who in their right mind would buy a Tesla Model S only to have it drive you around at exactly the speed limit, never accelerating or braking beyond the minimum requirement. Talk about a waste of a beautifully engineered car that's meant to be "driven".Check out this video of a Tesla Model S with the latest software update being released this week. The video shows the car driving itself and the driver changing lanes just by flicking the turn signal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw7Esg-txR0&feature=youtu.be
I think its further away than they are saying. Construction, signals out, pedestrians, cyclists, passing streetcars, snow etc- I don't believe they can deal with all this and hackers.All that stuff you mentioned makes driving safer, which is a good thing. I'm all for technology, but completely driverless is so far away it's not even funny.
Did you read how far away they still are? http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/google_self_driving_car_it_may_never_actually_happen.html
Making it work everywhere, practical and affordable is decades away. Besides, it will likely only serve a niche market.
I think their new autopilot software is a perfect blend. It's only there when you want it. Boring highway commutes and traffic. It's not limited to the speed limit, you can set it to go any speed you want.Who in their right mind would buy a Tesla Model S only to have it drive you around at exactly the speed limit, never accelerating or braking beyond the minimum requirement. Talk about a waste of a beautifully engineered car that's meant to be "driven".