Ed Self-Driving Cars: Pros, Cons, and Predictions

Evaluate Self-Driving Cars on a scale of 1-5 (1 = Terrible, 3 = Meh, 5 = Great)

  • 1

    Votes: 10 6.6%

  • 2

    Votes: 11 7.2%

  • 3

    Votes: 24 15.8%

  • 4

    Votes: 28 18.4%

  • 5

    Votes: 79 52.0%
  • Total voters
    152
  • Poll closed .
It depends on the system. First, Google maps is very good at estimating journey time on roads like that, and gets the actual practical speed right, so it is possible. But second, the Tesla autonomous driving system doesn't depend on the road being mapped in detail. There's no geofence keeping Teslas in a specific mapped area as there is with the other system.
 
Darat said:
I live in an area that will be very tricky for self-drive cars unless many, many roads and lanes are removed from their navigation systems. Currently lots of people even those more familiar with the area won’t use satnav if going somewhere new as the satnavs treat many of the one lane roads as “fast” roads as the nominal speed limit is the national speed limit I.e. 60mph, whereas you’d be pushing your luck to even go to 30mph and probably at some point have to reverse back to a “passing place” which is usually a small section of the road where it has been made wider by cars constantly brushing against a hedge. There is zero probability these roads are going to be converted for self-driving cars.
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Same here. Full self drive would be a pipe dream. Single track roads and/or no road markings. It's largely impossible to determine where the edge of the road is. There are often floods across the roads and in the summer bracken can make the lanes appear impassible.

Add in dopey pedestrian tourists and their hounds, escaped sheep, cyclists and equestrians and any respectable self drive vehicle would throw up its virtual hands.
 
The Don said:
Same here. Full self drive would be a pipe dream. Single track roads and/or no road markings. It's largely impossible to determine where the edge of the road is. There are often floods across the roads and in the summer bracken can make the lanes appear impassible.

Add in dopey pedestrian tourists and their hounds, escaped sheep, cyclists and equestrians and any respectable self drive vehicle would throw up its virtual hands.
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There's a stretch of relatively wide straightish road up the hill from here, no exaggeration but every year you will see at least a couple of cars in the ditch, not usually from excessive speeding* but from being a polite driver pulling over to let other vehicles pass and not knowing about the concealed ditch on one side on the road.

*You can spot the excessive speeding ones, they are the ones on their roof in the ditch!
 
wonder when spoofing self-driving navigation will become a sport. Making navigation software like Google Maps think that there's a traffic jam when there isn't is rather trivial. I'm sure it's not much harder for a Tesla.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
wonder when spoofing self-driving navigation will become a sport. Making navigation software like Google Maps think that there's a traffic jam when there isn't is rather trivial. I'm sure it's not much harder for a Tesla.
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Why would you spend time and effort deliberately ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ things up for other people like that?
 
I think it would be helpful if people in this discussion watched some of the videos of Teslas being driven with supervised autopilot. They don't need lane markings and I've seen them handle dirt tracks. I've seen one leave the road and go up on a grass verge to avoid an accident. Navigation software is just navigation software. The car doesn't drive at the speed Google tells it to drive at, it follows the instructions or the car in front (like a sophisticated ACC).

There's not a lot of point in speculating when people have misconceived ideas about how this works.
 
Rolfe said:
Why do people write computer viruses?
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Various reasons.

I was the proud recipient of what I believe to be the first reported MS Word macro virus, "Concept", in Australia. I was working for the Department of Defence at the time. One of its components was called "Payload" which contained one commented phrase: "I think this proves my point".
 
There are people walking along roads all the time. I'd have thought there was some way to distinguish between phones in cars, phones on bikes and phones in pedestrians' pockets.

But none of that is particularly relevant to self driving cars.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Oh, if you meant more dangeorus than public transport, then I agree with you of course.


Not sure what your point even is here. My point is that no matter how much new urbanism catches on and we manage to make cities for people, not cars... We still need cars, and self-driving cars are going to be safer than regular cars. And even if you were to somehow make the point we don't need private cars... Deliveries? Emergency vehicles? Mail? People living way farther than 20 minutes from the nearest bus stop or train station? The list goes on.
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My point is that able bodied people don't need cars for the last mile.

The rest of your argument is a straw man. Nobody is suggesting we do away with cars completely and certainly not delivery vans. There will always be cases where these forms of transport is needed but we definitely need far fewer cars in our urban centres.
 
Rolfe said:
It depends on the system. First, Google maps is very good at estimating journey time on roads like that
, and gets the actual practical speed right, so it is possible. But second, the Tesla autonomous driving system doesn't depend on the road being mapped in detail. There's no geofence keeping Teslas in a specific mapped area as there is with the other system.
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I'd have to disagree with that bit. Often it has sent me down country lanes that are marginally shorter routes but take a damn sight longer. Google maps seems to have no clue about the quality of the road. just its theoretical speed limit.
 
GlennB said:
I'd have to disagree with that bit. Often it has sent me down country lanes that are marginally shorter routes but take a damn sight longer. Google maps seems to have no clue about the quality of the road. just its theoretical speed limit.
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It will use the official classification - "a" or "b" and the speed limits.
 
Darat said:
It will use the official classification - "a" or "b" and the speed limits.
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Yup, and if a single-track lane and a decent road are both classed as 'B' then it will send you down the lane if it happens to be shorter.
WIll robocars do better?
 
GlennB said:
Yup, and if a single-track lane and a decent road are both classed as 'B' then it will send you down the lane if it happens to be shorter.
WIll robocars do better?
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No because they use the same routing info as any of the satnav systems do.
 
GlennB said:
I'd have to disagree with that bit. Often it has sent me down country lanes that are marginally shorter routes but take a damn sight longer. Google maps seems to have no clue about the quality of the road. just its theoretical speed limit.
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Are we seriously talking about the same product, used over the past year? I have been gobsmacked by how good it is. Barring rapidly-developing traffic issues its ETA is almost spookily accurate. It knows damn well what the practical driving speed of a road is. I used it in the north-west Highlands in September on single-track roads and it always got the ETA right. I got the feeling it even knew the times of the Corran ferry. It's amazingly good at finding detours round hold-ups. It once took me off a jammed-up M8, steered me through the spaghetti hoops of the Livingston roundabouts then back on to the motorway, but six minutes further forward in the queue than I had been.

I know it wasn't so good years ago, but now I wouldn't be without it. I just plug my phone into the car (Android Auto) and I know when I'll arrive. On a long trip I set the next charger as my destination and titrate the miles remaining against the car's remaining range to arrive in good order on about 4% battery. I think it's bloody brilliant.

But actually, I don't know what this has to do with self-driving cars.
 
Rolfe said:
Are we seriously talking about the same product, used over the past year?

But actually, I don't know what this has to do with self-driving cars.
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Yes, to the first point. In country areas it's prone to sending me down narrow lanes when it spots a 'short cut'

To the second point - I've learned to ignore certain 'short cuts' as I know they're trouble. Will a robocar be able to learn? Also, if I end up on such a lane I can keep my eyes peeled for places to pull in, such as field entrances, in case I meet an oncoming vehicle. WIll self-driving cars be able to do that? Maybe even reverse a good distance to avoid a standoff?
 
I live in a country area and mostly drive in country areas and it's never done that to me. It only scopes out these lanes when there's a road closure on the main road.
 
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