The autonomous (self driving) car buyers and owners thread (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

Nissan/Renault pledges autonomous vehicles by 2020, ask their president anything on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2s7obx/im_the_ceo_of_renault_and_nissan_and_were_making/

 

[Sam Posten]

The Brits are apparently optimistic and want to be prepared and are reviewing legal doctrine ahead of commercial trials:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31364441

 

[Dave Upton]

Thanks for posting all this new here Sam. What are your thoughts on all the Tesla engineers poached by Apple?

 

[Sam Posten]

Speculation is that Apple makes a car:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple-is-working-on-a-car


Dunno, seems like a stretch to me!

 

[Sam Posten]

Like the space race before it, the Electric/Autonomous Driving race(hey, if that's not a thing, now it is!) will spin off auxiliary tech that -supports- that end goal, and that tech might end up being more important in the long run than the main drive. Think how we got consumer level PCs and other electronics plus global communications satellites off the back of the space program.


In the car race, the biggest area of intense research includes AI, computer vision, robotics, and my favorite: batteries. Musk has Top Men and Women working on batteries and we may be shocked at how important they will be to the future. He just announced he is going to introduce battery tech for the home.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/11/8023443/tesla-home-consumer-battery-elon-musk


As someone who has withstood storms and other power losses I'm intrigued. As a firefighter who has had to worry about arcing electric from power lines and mixing water and electricity I'm a bit skeert =) Big capacitors can unleash holy hell in one zap.

 

[Sam Posten]

Agreed:

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8092141/silicon-valley-dominate-cars

 

[KevinGress]

The nice thing about this article was that there wasn't the assumption that government HAD to get involved. The bad thing is that it's continuing the notion that, in time, allowing human drivers and car ownership will become the debates.


I live in the Midwest and car/truck ownership is essential - sure, there are ways around it, but life is severly impacted without having a vehicle. Could I envision a scenario in the future where car ownership is few and far between and human drivers are 'outlawed' - yes, but it would involve a lot of government interference to bring this about. While not as much as in the past, I believe car ownership is a manifestation of personal liberty and freedom.


I did think it was funny that the author's imagination got away from him - "The biggest change, though, may be the rise of vehicles designed for zero people. For example, right now if you order a pizza, it's usually delivered by a human driver in a full-sized car — that's thousands of pounds of steel and glass to deliver a pizza that weighs a few pounds. But once you eliminate the need for a human driver, there's no reason for delivery vehicles to be so big, heavy, and expensive."


Uh, exactly how is the pizza getting from the driverless car to the house? Drone?! If I'm ordering pizza delivery I'm not going to want to walk outside to get it (unless they somehow discount the pizza...) Humanless transport will happen but as long as there's people, you're not going to be able to remove them from all equations.

 

[Sam Posten]

Neat!

This driverless Mercedes cruising around SF blowing everyone's mind http://t.co/W3fcySgknz

 

[Sam Posten]

Roll your own:

http://recode.net/2015/03/17/nvidia-announces-drive-px-its-self-driving-car-platform/

 

[Sam Posten]

Neat!

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/20/8263561/mercedes-benz-f-015-self-driving-video

 

[Sam Posten]

Love the comments! "Why in the hell would I want this"

http://gizmodo.com/ford-introduces-cars-that-can-recognize-and-obey-speed-1693538996?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

 

[Sam Posten]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/automobiles/semiautonomous-driving-arrives-feature-by-feature.html?_r=0

Good point!

“There’s not going to be some magical moment when we say, here is the autonomous car,” said Scott Keogh, head of Audi’s United States operations. “We have the technology, and we are going to keep bringing it out, step by step. You need to have customer acceptance and see what consumers are willing to pay for.”

LOL:

Rolls-Royce, which had cars at the show with prices topping $350,000, could easily have integrated the existing semiautonomous features of the most advanced Mercedes S-Class, Audi or Volvo, and its buyers could easily afford them. But Gerry Spahn, a Rolls-Royce spokesman, said the company had no plans to offer such self-driving features.

The Rolls lineup includes multiple sensors, infrared scanners and even a visual head-up display to feed information to the driver, he said, but the company intends to keep such sensor technology largely operating in the background.


“Our customers don’t want a bunch of things beeping or buzzing at them,” Mr. Spahn said. “They’re not spending this kind of money to be told how to drive, or to sit at the wheel but have the car do the work. They want to keep the control themselves over that experience.”


When Rolls buyers do not feel like doing the driving, they often have another option.


“Most customers already have an autonomous driver,” he said. “It’s called a chauffeur.”

 

[Sam Posten]

Planes trains and automobiles!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/science/planes-without-pilots.html?_r=0

 

[Sam Posten]

Autonomous chef Watson!

http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Cooking-Chef-Watson-Innovation/dp/149262571X/


Not an April fools Joke, I don't think...

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Wacky!

 

[Sam Posten]

Halo whole car wireless charging:

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/04/cutting-the-cord-ars-goes-hands-on-with-qualcomm-halo-wireless-car-charging/

 

[Sam Posten]

We don't even own our cars any more:

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Yoik!

 

[jimmyjet]

i do not want self-driving cars on the road

 

[Sam Posten]

Then I am glad you are not in charge =)